Monthly Archives: July 2013

What Sharia Law Means

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France 24 reported today that Dubai has pardoned Marte Dalelv and will allow her to fly home to Norway. Marte Dalelv was sentenced to jail for 16 months in prison after a co-worker spiked her drink and raped her. Yes, you read that right.

When you hear people say that Sharia Law is compatible with American democracy, remember that Ms. Dalelv’s story does not represent an isolated incident.

According to a U.K. Mail article updated yesterday:

Gali (Australian Alicia Gali, 27) was working at hotel chain Starwood when her drink was spiked in the staff bar.

She awoke to find that three colleagues had raped her, but when she went to a hospital for help, they turned her over to the police and she was charged with illicit sex outside marriage.

Under UAE law, rapists can only be convicted if either the perpetrator confesses or if four adult Muslim males witness the crime.

Under the Sharia-influenced laws, sex before marriage is completely forbidden and an unmarried couple holding hands in public can be jailed.

Foreigners jailed in Dubai are deported immediately after completing their sentences.

This is an example of Sharia Law. This is one of many reasons some states in America have done a preemptive strike against Sharia by outlawing its use in their courts.

 

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Stupid Quote Of The Week

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Quoted on Fox News Sunday this week in reference to the bankruptcy in Detroit:

…Steven Rattner, who is the former car czar for Detroit, wrote a story this week and he says that he believes — an essay — that he believes Washington should help. Let’s put on screen what he said.

He writes, “The 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroit’s problems than were the victims of Hurricane Sandy for theirs, and eventually, Congress decided to help them.”

I have more than a few problems with that statement. The remaining residents of the Motor City are responsible for Detroit’s problems–they voted for the officials that made the decisions that brought the city to this point.

On Friday, Rich Galen posted an article at Townhall.com that pointed out the following:

But it’s not the unions’ fault. It is the fault of the elected officials — Democrats in Detroit — who didn’t have the guts to say “No” to their largest voting bloc.

It has been said that the difference between public and private unions is this: Private union leaders know that if their demands become too high, the company will go out of business and everyone will lose their job.

Public unions, until recently, just kept demanding, and getting, more and more while producing nothing new in terms of services they render. Union pensions tend to be so generous that taxpayers end up paying almost full wages to three or four workers, only one of whom is still actually working, to do exactly the same job that one person had been paid to do in an earlier age. According to some estimates, retirees outnumber active workers 2-1.

The problem is unfunded liabilities. If workers pay a small percentage of their salaries into a pension fund, that money can be set aside for the future. If workers are not required to contribute anything to their future pensions, those pensions become an unfunded liability and eventually overwhelm the system.

The bankruptcy of Detroit was the result of bad fiscal policies, raising taxes in the hopes of collecting more money (it doesn’t work–see the Laffer curve), and a population fleeing increased crime and less effective law enforcement. All of those things are avoidable–none of them are natural disasters.

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The Only Thing That Lasts Forever Is A Government Program

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The only thing that lasts forever is a government program–whether it works or not. This weekend’s Wall Street Journal (no link–subscribers only) posted an article about the government’s Ethanol policies. The use of Ethanol is raising the price of gasoline at the pump and is partially responsible for the increase in gasoline prices this summer.

The article reports:

In 2007 the Bush Administration and Congress mandated how much ethanol the oil and gas industry must purchase each year to be blended into gasoline. This year it is 13.8 billion gallons. The quotas were established when Washington thought gas consumption would rise year after year, but instead it has fallen.

But even though the program does not fit the current scenario, the program continues. American motorists will not buy gasoline that is more than 10 percent Ethanol because it costs more and can be damaging to engines, but because of the purchase requirements set on the oil and gas industry by the government, we are approaching the point where the required Ethanol would result in more than 10 percent of gasoline consumption. Because of this refiners have to buy energy credits for the Ethanol they don’t use (sounds like Cap and Trade). The credits are called Renewable Identification Numbers (RIN). The cost of an RIN used to be less than 10 cents a gallon. It is now $1.40. This translates into roughly 10 cents a gallon for consumers. As a Senator, President Obama stated that high gasoline prices were not a bad thing. The fact that the government standards on Ethanol have not been adjusted or repealed helps keep those prices high.

The article also mentions:

But even environmentalists (including Al Gore) now concede that Ethanol probably increases carbon emissions.

If we are not helping the environment, why are we doing this?

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I Guess It Depends On Which Religion You Want To Be Free From

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On Friday, Breitbart.com posted an article about the proposed Ohio Holocaust Memorial. The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) wants to remove the Star of David from that memorial.

The article reports:

In a June 14 letter to Richard H. Finan, chairman of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board, two FFRF officials said they have no objections to a Holocaust memorial at the statehouse, but claimed that the cut-out version of the six-pointed Star of David would be a violation of the separation of church and state as provided for in the Constitution.

“Permitting one permanent sectarian and exclusionary religious symbol… would create the legal precedent, for instance, to place an equally large or larger permanent Latin cross on Capitol grounds,” wrote Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of the Madison, Wisconsin group. Gaylor is the daughter of Anne Nicol Gaylor, author of Abortion Is A Blessing. Barker said that the Holocaust memorial, as currently proposed, would amount to a “constitutionally problematic endorsement of religion.”

Yes, I realize that people other than Jews were sent to Concentration Camps and executed, but we need to realize that the majority of the people killed by the Nazis were killed because they were Jewish. When the Nazis took over a country, they forced the Jews to wear the Star of David on their clothes in order to separate them from the rest of the population. The Star of David played a very important role in the Holocaust.

But let’s look at some of the past work of the FFRF. The article reports:

In March 2012, the FFRF also placed an anti-Catholic ad that was published by the New York Times. The ad, which criticized the Church’s position against ObamaCare’s HHS mandate, stated, “It’s time to quit the Roman Catholic Church. Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages?”

The ad accused the Catholic Church of promoting “acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, overpopulation, social evils and deaths.”

In an appeal to Catholic women, the ad asked, “Apparently, you’re like the battered woman who, after being beaten down every Sunday, feels she has no place else to go.”

In response to the publication of the FFRF ad by the New York Times, Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs submitted an ad along the same lines to the Times entitled, “It’s Time To Quit Islam.” The Times, however, rejected Geller’s ad because “the fallout from running this ad now could put U.S. troops and/or civilians in the [Afghan] region in danger.”

The Catholic Church never told its female members that it was okay for their husbands to beat them. The Catholic Church never forced women to cover themselves from head to foot before they went outside. The Catholic Church has never advocated the hanging of homosexuals. Why is there a double standard here?

The Holocaust directly involved the Star of David. To exclude the Star of David from the memorial is another form of anti-Semitism.

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Things I Never Knew

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Hopefully this will be the last thing I ever post about Trayvon Martin. In surfing the internet today, I found that part of my education was severely lacking in terms of understanding this case.

In June 2012, the American Thinker posted a timeline of the events the night Trayvon Martin was killed. In listening to the news, we all heard that Trayvon was an innocent young man going to the store for iced tea and skittles. Nothing to see here, move along, folks. Well, my ignorance is showing.

The article at the American Thinker explains the significance of tea and skittles:

Trayvon, with his hoodie up, grabs two items from the shelves of 7-11.  One is the Skittles.  The other is Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail.  The media avoid the name of the real drink — possibly because of the racial implications of the word “watermelon,” but possibly to avoid probing the real reason for Trayon’s trip.

Trayvon, in fact, had become a devotee of the druggy concoction known as “Lean,” also known in southern hip-hop culture as “Sizzurp” and “Purple Drank.”  Lean consists of three basic ingredients — codeine, a soft drink, and candy.  If his Facebook postings are to be believed, Trayvon had been using Lean since at least June 2011.  

On June 27, 2011, Trayvon asks a friend online, “unow a connect for codien?”  He tells the friend that “robitussin and soda” could make “some fire ass lean.”  He says, “I had it before” and that he wants “to make some more.”  On the night of February 26, if Brandy had some Robitussin at home, Trayvon had just bought the mixings for one “fire ass lean” cocktail.

I stumbled on this information accidentally through a friend on Facebook. Where was the media on this? We have been sold a bill of goods on this trial and everything connected with it. The media has again destroyed its own credibility.

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America Used To Be A Beacon Of Freedom

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The Blaze is reporting today that the German family seeking political asylum in the United States because they want to homeschool their children will take their case to the Supreme Court.

An immigration judge granted the Romeike family asylum in 2010, but the U.S. government appealed. An immigration appeals board sided with the government, and the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals last week denied the family’s request for a new hearing.

The Home School Legal Defense Association is representing the family and has stated that they will take the case to the Supreme Court.

The article reports:

“The German High Court is on record for saying that religious homeschoolers should be targeted and severely punished, yet our Justice Department sees nothing wrong with that,” Farris (Home School Legal Defense Association founder Michael Farris) said. “The attorney general and Sixth Circuit are ignoring critical evidence and are trying to send back this family who is trying to stay in our country legally. We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will go the other way and see what the original immigration judge saw: that this family and other religious homeschoolers in Germany are being persecuted for what they believe is the right way to raise their children.”

These are exactly the kind of people who should be granted asylum in the United States. Hopefully the Supreme Court will take the case and grant the Romeike family the freedom they are seeking.

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They voted for it. They found out what is in it. Now let’s make it go away.

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Even the media outlets that usually love President Obama are choking on ObamaCare. The Associated Press posted an article today noting President Obama’s spin on the ObamaCare rebates.

The article reports:

In his speech defending his health care law Thursday, Obama said rebates averaging $100 are coming from insurance companies to 8.5 million Americans. In fact, most of the money is going straight to employers who provide health insurance, not to their workers, who benefit indirectly.

Obama danced around that reality in remarks that also blamed problems in establishing affordable insurance markets on political opponents, glossing over complex obstacles also faced in states that support the law.

In his speech, the President introduced several people who got rebates from their health insurance premiums last year, but there were a few things he neglected to mention. Generally speaking, the rebates are sent to the companies who provide the insurance for their employees–those companies have no obligation to pass those rebates on to their employees.

There is also another really dangerous aspect of these rebates. President Obama stated, ” If they’re (insurers) not spending your premium dollars on your health care – at least 80 percent of it – they’ve got to give you some money back.” Since when does the government have the right to tell any company selling a product how to spend the money it receives for that product?

The article also reports:

In California, for example, where there is plenty of competition by health insurers wanting to get into the exchange, an actuarial report commissioned by Covered California, the state agency running the insurance marketplace, found that middle-income residents could see individual health premiums increase by an average of 30 percent while costs go down for lower income people.

In West Virginia, Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin – also a cooperative partner in expanding Medicaid and setting up an exchange – complained to federal officials this week about delays in rules and guidelines from Washington as the state struggles to meet deadlines under the law.

ObamaCare needs to go away. We need enough men in Congress who love this country more than they love their political parties to make that happen. If we don’t have those men in Congress now, we need to elect them in 2014. ObamaCare needs to go away.

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The War On Coal Goes Global

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Yesterday Steven Hayward at Power Line posted an article reporting that the World Bank voted yesterday to cease funding coal-fired power plants in developing nations.

The World Bank not only ruled that it would not fund coal-fired power to developing nations, but also not fund energy projects in any nation that uses other funds to finance coal power. Coal is a cheap form of energy that in the past has helped countries progress from third-world nations into participating and contributing members of the world economy.

The article reports:

The bank’s sweeping “Directions for the World Bank Group’s Energy Sector” emphasizes bringing energy access to the estimated 1.2 billion people living without electricity and 2.8 billion without modern cooking facilities. It promises financial solutions for the most feasible energy options in poor, fragile and conflict-ridden states. It embraces renewable energy, energy efficiency and off-grid technology while also vowing to increase assistance for natural gas and large hydropower development.

The World Bank has just decided that it doesn’t want any more countries to develop. This ruling is not practical for countries that need cheap energy now.

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Detroit Goes Under

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The Washington Examiner is reporting today that the city of Detroit is filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

The article reports:

According to the bankruptcy filing, Detroit now has more than $18 billion in unfunded liabilities. The city’s population has dwindled from 1.85 million in 1950 to under 700,000 today, and its tax revenues have shrunk accordingly even as the average tax burden has risen to the highest level of any town in the state. A deficit estimated at $237 million in June was too much for the once-mighty industrial town to handle.

A website called Pensions & Investments posted the following on July 11:

Mr. Orr (Kevyn Orr, the city’s emergency fiscal manager) has proposed that city employees with less than 10 years of vested service be taken out of the defined benefit plan and be moved to 401(k)-style savings plans.

There’s no way employees or unions will bargain away pension benefits, said Michael VanOverbeke, a lawyer for the general employees retirement system, after the meeting. Michigan‘s constitution prohibits changes in accrued pension benefits, Mr. VanOverbeke said. Mr. Orr has said that a bankruptcy filing would negate the state protection.

This is a problem a lot of cities, states, and municipalities are going to be faced with in the very near future. For years unions have negotiated contracts that included retirement plans that were totally funded by taxpayer money. As private companies have converted to 401k plans where employees contribute to their retirement, public employee unions have not followed suit. The bankruptcy of Detroit is not really a surprise to anyone. You can’t continue to spend more than you take in without running out of money at some point. As the jobs left Detroit, the city had no way to make up the lost income. It attempted to raise taxes to generate income, but that simply drove people out of the city.  It’s just a shame that the leadership of the city couldn’t have done more to avoid the problem.

 

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When Government Becomes A Bully

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Today is the day that the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform holds hearings to try to find the root of the problems at the Internal Revenue Service. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is supposed to be a non-political organization that collects taxes from Americans. Unfortunately under President Obama, it seems that the IRS has become a political organization used to silence political opponents.

The Weekly Standard posted an article today listing some of the problems within the IRS and the Obama Administration that have recently been revealed.

The article reports:

Career IRS employees have testified on Capitol Hill that the federal agency’s chief counsel played a part in the scandal of targeting conseratives, the House Ways and Means Committee announced today in a press release. As a result, House Ways and Means Committee chair Dave Camp, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Darrell Issa, Ways and Means Subcommittee chair Charles Boustany Jr, and Oversight Subcommittee chair Jim Jordan have sent a letter to the IRS requesting “new documents related to IRS employee discussions about the 2010 election, the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, and the tax-exempt status of Tea Party groups,” a press release announces.

The Citizens United Supreme Court decision essentially leveled the playing field in terms of funding political campaigns. Before that decision, the unions had pretty much provided an unmatched, never-ending flow of money into Democrat campaign coffers. The blocking of Tea Party tax-exempt applications limited the amount of money the Tea Party would be able to put into the campaigns of conservative candidates. The Obama political machine needed to prevent the Tea Party from funding candidates that would not be in line with the objectives of the Obama Administration.

The politicization of the IRS is a danger to our representative republic. If the group in power can limit the funds available to their opponents, they can stay in power. Whether we like it or not, money is a very important part of American elections. Money pays for the advertisements that explain the views of the candidates on various issues. If you cut the funds of one candidate, you limit his ability to get his message out.

Hopefully, at the end of these hearings, those people responsible for the mistreatment of conservative organizations will face the full legal consequences of their actions.

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The Right Reponse To Tackiness

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Rolling Stone featured a very flattering picture of the alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on its August cover. Mayor Thomas Menino sent a letter to Rolling Stone with the appropriate response.

This is the letter the Mayor of Boston sent to Rolling Stone:

That is the correct response.

 

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When Unions Panic

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Last night the Senate reached an agreement to avoid the “nuclear option” that prevented the end of the filibuster in blocking Presidential appointments. So what’s the deal, and what’s it all about?

CNS News reminds us:

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) has been very good at getting under Democratic Leader Harry Reid‘s (D-Nev) skin by holding up all sorts of bills and nominations.

But, before you cluck-cluck at the Republicans, it is well to remember that way back in 2005, when they were in the minority, Senate Democrats did exactly the same thing, which led then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn) to contemplate the exact same “nuclear option” that Senator Reid was threatening earlier this week.

But there’s more. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Big Labor desperately wants a quorum of at least three National Labor Relations Board nominees to keep issuing pro-union orders that have become the NLRB’s standard operating procedure in the Obama years. Today there are only three board members and Chairman Mark Pearce is set to resign on August 27.
Under Tuesday’s Senate deal, the Obama Administration will agree to withdraw the nominations of the two NLRB board members whom Mr. Obama first appointed in January 2012 as recess appointments though the Senate wasn’t in recess. The President will then nominate two new pro-union board members, whom Republicans won’t filibuster, as well as two GOP nominees. Mr. Trumka gets his new legal quorum.

So why are the unions so concerned? This chart from Google might explain something:

Loss of members means loss of prestige, but there’s more. In June 2010, I reported on the status of union pension funds (rightwinggranny.com):

In a column in the Washington Examiner in April, Mark Hemingway pointed out that the average union pension plan had only enough money to cover 62 percent of its financial obligations.  Pension plans that are below 80 percent funding are considered “endangered” by the government; below 65 percent is considered “critical.”  Union membership is declining, which means that less people are paying into these funds.

Unions have a rightful place in America. However, in recent years they have attempted to usurp power beyond what was their original purpose. Meanwhile, union leaders live like kings and workers pay mandatory dues and struggle to make ends meet. Unfortunately, the unions see the Obama Administration as an opportunity to increase their power and influence (and the wealth of their leaders). Hopefully the next election will restore a balance between unions and those who choose not to join them. Meanwhile, the Republicans are making some really bad decisions.

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The Story Behind The Story

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NBC Washington reports that even though the D.C. Council has passed a law that will not allow Walmart to locate there unless it pays an ‘living wage‘ of $12.50 per hour, the D. C. government pays its employees less than that.

The battle over Walmart has less to do with wages than it does with unions. On Friday, NewsBusters posted an article explaining exactly what is going on.

NewsBusters reports:

On Thursday, my colleague Jeffrey Meyer noted how the Washington Post‘s Mike DeBonis failed to explain to readers how unionized retail outlets would benefit from an exemption in the cynically-titled Large Retailer Accountability Act, the D.C. Council bill that would require large retail chains like Walmart to pay employees at least $12.50/hour.

Notice the union exemption. So what does that mean? An employee in a union store makes less than what Walmart is required to pay and is required to pay union dues out of the smaller salary he receives. In what universe does that make sense?

NewsBusters reports:

So it’s fine and dandy to labor union activists and liberal Democratic councilmen for a retail employee in Washington, D.C., to get paid less than $12.50/hour “living wage” under the bill, just so long as it’s through a union labor-derived collective bargaining agreement, which naturally means joining a union and paying dues to the same.

The law in question expressly forbids and declares null and void any personal arrangements and negotiations an employee could arrive at with his employer. The rights of contract of both the worker and the employer are infringed by the law, but the Post fails to see how the little guy can be a victim in all this.

If the voters in Washington D.C. re-elect the Council members who came up with this law, they deserve what they get. Walmart is not a perfect retailer, but it brings jobs and lower priced goods into an area, increasing the tax base, lowering the unemployment level, and increasing the spending power of the residents of that area. To pass a law specifically aimed at one company because they are not unionized will hurt the residents of the area–not help them.

 

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Politicizing The Justice Department

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Yesterday the Washington Times posted a story about illegal activity on the part of government employees at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The article reports:

The Treasury Department has admitted for the first time that confidential tax records of several political candidates and campaign donors were improperly scrutinized by government officials, but the Justice Department has declined to prosecute any of the cases.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. for an explanation of the lack of prosecutions. Senator Grassley has asked for a reply before July 26.

The article reports:

“Although this may not be indicative of wide spread targeting, any instance is cause for concern,” Mr. Grassley wrote. “Even more alarming, in at least one instance TIGTA referred evidence of ‘willful unauthorized access’ to the United States Attorney’s Office, but criminal prosecution was declined. Decisions such as these directly impact the political process and should be subject to the scrutiny of the American public.”

The IRS did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. George’s findings.

It really is time to clean house in Washington.

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Welcome Home

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Yesterday the Navy Times posted a number of pictures taken at Arlington National Cemetery taken during the burial of Michael Judd. Michael was a Navy Corpsman who was killed in Vietnam.

The article reports:

The 21-year-old Cleveland man was aboard a helicopter that crashed June 30, 1967. He had gone to Vietnam in 1966 and was killed less than two months before he was scheduled to return home.

Judd was with a Marine reconnaissance team when the aircraft was shot down.

Please follow the link above to the article to see the pictures. Welcome Home, Michael.

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The Jobs Numbers In Perspective

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Mort Zuckerman posted an article at the Wall Street Journal yesterday analyzing the latest jobs report. Mort Zuckerman is chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report. In the article Mr. Zuckerman points out that the longest and worst recession since the end of World War II has been followed by the weakest recovery from a recession in that period.

The article points out that the jobless rate is actually increasing–not decreasing:

The jobless nature of the recovery is particularly unsettling. In June, the government’s Household Survey reported that since the start of the year, the number of people with jobs increased by 753,000—but there are jobs and then there are “jobs.” No fewer than 557,000 of these positions were only part-time. The survey also reported that in June full-time jobs declined by 240,000, while part-time jobs soared by 360,000 and have now reached an all-time high of 28,059,000—three million more part-time positions than when the recession began at the end of 2007.

That’s just for starters. The survey includes part-time workers who want full-time work but can’t get it, as well as those who want to work but have stopped looking. That puts the real unemployment rate for June at 14.3%, up from 13.8% in May.

That is not a recovery.

The article also points out:

That brings us to a stunning fact about the jobless recovery: The measure of those adults who can work and have jobs, known as the civilian workforce-participation rate, is currently 63.5%—a drop of 2.2% since the recession ended. Such a decline amid a supposedly expanding economy has never happened after previous recessions. Another statistic that underscores why this is such a dysfunctional labor market is that the number of people leaving the workforce during this economic recovery has actually outpaced the number of people finding a new job by a factor of nearly three.

We need a serious change of economic policy to turn this around. ObamaCare is a major part of the problem, but over regulation and over taxation also play a part in this problem. Unemployment numbers of above 7 percent should not be allowed to become the norm.

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Protecting Our Security In The Western Hemisphere

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Today’s Los Angeles Times posted a story about a North Korean ship passing through the Panama Canal on route home from Cuba found to be carrying missile equipment. Panama President Ricardo Martinelli has released details of the discovery to the Panamanian media. He has also posted pictures on his Twitter account.

The article reports:

If the shipment proves to be missiles or other arms, it would likely constitute a violation of United Nations sanctions against North Korea that prohibit the importation of conventional weapons and items that could be used to develop nuclear weapons and missiles.

The sanctions against the hermit-like communist country have been in place since 2006, and were strengthened by the U.N. Security Council in March after the North Koreans announced a nuclear test in Febraury.

The Spanish news agency EFE reported that a Korean military delegation headed by general Kim Kyok Sik had visited with top Cuban military officials in Havana in late June. The North Korean general said at the time that the two friendly countries shared “the same foxhole.”

This episode shows that the United Nations sanctions against North Korea are not really working. In both Cuba and North Korea, the average citizen lives in conditions those of us who live in free countries can’t even imagine. Letting their governments continue to increase their weaponry does no one any good–either the citizens of their countries or the rest of the world.

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An Invitation To Disaster

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Yesterday The Blaze reported a rather serious problem with the implementation of ObamaCare in California. California is moving ahead with its healthcare exchanges and making a valiant effort to make sure that everyone in the state has health insurance. However, they have run into a bit of a snag.

The article reports:

The exchange, known as Covered California, recently adopted rules for a network of more than 21,000 “enrollment counselors” who will provide consumers with in-person assistance. In some cases, they will have access to personal and financial information, from ID cards to medical histories.

But the state insurance commissioner and anti-fraud groups say the exchange is falling far short of ensuring that the people hired as counselors are adequately screened and monitored.

The unemployment rate in California is currently 9 percent. Many of the unemployed in California are highly skilled, ethical people who were employed in the various industries that have left the state due to the high cost of doing business there. There are obviously enough quality people available for these jobs, it seems to me that basic screening of the people who want to be “enrollment counselors” would not be that difficult.

The article notes the potential for disaster:

Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, a Democrat, also said the exchange does not have a plan for investigating any complaints that might arise once the counselors start work. That means consumers who might fall prey to bogus health care products, identity theft and other abuses will have a hard time seeking justice if unscrupulous counselors get ahold of their Social Security number, bank accounts, health records or other private information, he said.

Generally speaking, a private company takes the time to do some basic research on a potential employee because their ‘bottom line’ is at stake. One of the problems of a government-run organization is that there is no incentive for profit and also no incentive to ‘protect the brand.’

The article reports:

Covered California spokesman Santiago Lucero said the exchange shares Jones’ concerns and has made consumer safety a priority. The exchange’s board adopted regulations last month requiring enrollment counselors to wear name badges, undergo background checks, and get fingerprinted.

But the exchange’s current rules do not specify what offenses would disqualify an applicant for a counseling position.

The potholes on the path to ObamaCare are big enough to swallow a full-size car.

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The Central Valley Water Problem Is Still In The News

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In 2010, I posted some pictures of my summer vacation (It’s my blog–I can do that). The pictures were of the California Central Valley, once the breadbasket of America, now a politically created dust bowl. This is one of the pictures:

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Well, California Governor Jerry Brown is trying to change that. I don’t know how practical his plan is, but I love the fact that he is trying to change a really unfortunate situation.

Today’s Sacramento Bee reported that the state and federal water agencies that control most of Northern California’s water are negotiating the details of Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to build two massive water diversion tunnels in the Delta with 279 farm and urban water buyers. These contracts will govern those relationships – and extend the government’s obligation to provide water – for decades.

The article reports:

How the new contracts are shaped will affect water rates for millions of Californians. It also will change how taxpayers at large continue to subsidize the many dams and canals that deliver water.

The process is a kind of house-cleaning for the giant financial investment required to build the proposed tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. If the $25 billion project is approved next year, the state will be selling bonds for decades to pay for it; and the bond buyers, before committing, will want to see that the state has a solid contractual foundation with water agencies.

Meanwhile, today’s Wall Street Journal reports:

The U. S. Bureau of Reclamation this spring cut water deliveries to farmers and the two-thirds of Californians who live south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to between 20% and 35% of their contractual allocations. The reason? Because 300 three-inch smelt were caught int he pumps at the south end of the delta. Since smelt is designated “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, it’s being protected at literally all costs.

I am not a scientist, but common sense tells me that you don’t destroy the breadbasket of America for 300 fish. Governor Brown’s solution to the Central Valley’s water problem is very expensive. However, if the voters don’t kill the project because of the expense, the environmentalists will kill it because it will promote growth in an area that is losing people because of unemployment.

In the past four years I visited California about twice a year (my military children were stationed there). It is a beautiful state with a wonderful climate (I live in New England. To me, most other places have a wonderful climate). It was truly sad to drive through the Central Valley (on my way to a family reunion in Santa Rosa) and see the dust bowl that had once been abundant farms that supplied America’s food.

I have no idea whether or not Governor Brown’s plan is the answer to the water problems in the Central Valley. I am impressed, however, that at least he is looking at the problem and attempting to do something about it. Water in the Central Valley would do wonderful things for both the California economy and the California unemployment rate.

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An Interesting Perspective On Immigration Reform

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about the economic impact the current proposals regarding immigration reform will have on the incomes of Americans.

This week in his weekly address, President Obama stated the following:

The Senate’s plan would also provide a big boost to our recovery. And on Wednesday, we released a report detailing exactly how big a boost that would be.

The report is based on the findings of independent, nonpartisan economists and experts who concluded that, if the Senate’s plan becomes law, our economy will be 5% larger in two decades compared to the status quo. That’s $1.4 trillion added to our economy just by fixing our immigration system.

Here in America, we’ve always been a nation of immigrants. That’s what’s kept our workforce dynamic, our businesses on the cutting edge, and our economy the strongest in the world. But under the current system, too many smart, hardworking immigrants are prevented from contributing to that success.

John Hinderaker points out:

And who might those supposedly “independent, nonpartisan economists and experts” be? When you check out the actual report, here is who they are:

President’s National Economic Council, Domestic Policy Council, Office of Management and Budget, and the Council of Economic Advisers.

In other words, extensions of the office of the president. His appointees–high level flacks.

That’s the first problem with that statement. The second problem is explained by a Power Line reader with amazing math skills who sent a note to Power Line which definitely disputed that claim.

The reader reports:

The claim is that aggregate GDP will be 5% higher in 20 years than otherwise, equal to $1.4 trillion in constant dollars. By simple algebra that means they are assuming a status quo future GDP of $28 trillion and therefore an immigration-enhanced GDP of $29.4 trillion. But wait! What about GDP per capita, the only meaningful measure of economic growth for the populace? Well…population will increase from today’s 315 million to about 378 million under the current immigration and population levels, and to about 410 million with the new immigration regime, conservatively estimated. [Ed.: That is a VERY conservative estimate.] Simple arithmetic demonstrates that future GDP per capita without the new immigration levels is $74,000, whereas with increased immigration it is $71,700.

…Their plan is simply to import scores of millions of unskilled 3rd world immigrants, covered by a fig leaf of a few hundred thousand high skilled STEM workers, 90% of whom we can easily do without, in order to create “economic growth” — in the aggregate — by a massive population expansion from the outside–but not growth that will benefit existing native born Americans at all. And that is not counting the inevitable economic drawbacks of this grotesque giantism — overcrowding, land use issues, infrastructure deterioration, and environmental degradation, to name a few.

The ability of some of our elected leaders to lie in order to further whatever agenda they have is amazing to me. I would love to see our immigration policies reformed–they are awful. However, the current changes proposed by the Senate are not the answer. The incremental proposals coming from the House of Representatives might better solve our current problems.

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Keeping Children From The Things They Need

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Today’s children do not get the exercise many prior generations got. They have so much entertainment at their fingertips at home that they do not spend their days playing outside until the street lights come on. Their parents’ work schedules often prevent children from playing in the yard all day. Many of them live in places that don’t have yards. Sometimes the only exercise they get is through their involvement with the local YMCA, boys or girls club, or scouting–which brings me to the following story.

CNS News is reporting today that this year’s Boy Scouts of America’s national Jamboree has put into place new physical fitness requirements that have eliminated morbidly obese Scouts from participating.

The article reports:

This year, 30,000 Scouts ages 12 to 20 and their leaders were required to meet a threshold for body mass index and other health factors before being allowed to participate. Jamboree applicants with a BMI — a measure of body fat determined through height and weight — of 40 or higher were deemed ineligible. Those who fell between 32 and 39.9 faced providing additional health information to Jamboree medical staff.

This infuriates me. According to a website called sportsinghart.com, the average BMI of the National Football League is 31-35. Would you consider them overweight? My personal experience includes an eight-year-old grandson who is a serious hockey player. He is on the ice at least five times a week, even during the school year. Because he is all muscle, I suspect that his BMI is relatively high.

But there is another aspect to this story. What about the child who tends to be more round than tall? Bullying is a problem in our schools, and overweight children are often a target of that bullying. An overweight child may already be dealing with self esteem issues, how does being excluded from the Boy Scout Jamboree make him feel? How is that helping to build his character?

The article reports:

Soon, the Scouts will know why. Besides offering a whole lot of fun, dozens of venues will test their physical skills and fitness. At some point during the Jamboree, every participating Scout will be asked to take a 3-mile trek up a mountain.

Their reward: A barbecue waiting at the top.

“We certainly want to get the Scouts outdoors, challenge them and have a healthy lifestyle,” said Gary Hartley, the Summit’s director of community and governmental relations. “We talk about the three C’s as kind of the pillars, and that is cardio, character and citizenship. We have all of those embodied here.”

Why not have less strenuous activities for Boy Scouts that might not be as physically fit as the ideal? Wouldn’t that be teaching compassion and caring as well as character?

Some Additional Information On The George Zimmerman Case

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Today CNN reported the story of Ben Kruidbos, director of information technology for the Florida State Attorney‘s Office. Mr. Knuidbos has been on paid administrative leave since May 28. How is this relevant to George Zimmerman?

The article reports:

Kruidbos testified before Zimmerman’s trial began that Martin’s cell phone contained images of Martin blowing smoke, images of marijuana and deleted text messages regarding a transaction for a firearm and that those images had not been given to Zimmerman’s defense team.

He received the termination letter, dated July 11, on Friday, the same day jurors began deliberating Zimmerman’s case. The letter states: “It has come to our attention that you violated numerous State Attorney’s Office (SAO) policies and procedures and have engaged in deliberate misconduct that is especially egregious in light of your position.”

He was fired for refusing to be part of a cover-up.

The article further reports:

O’Mara (defense lawyer Mark O’Mara) said he learned about the missing information months after he was to have received it. “The only way that we really found out about it … and the only way that we really found out about the intensity of the failure to give us information was when a person from their own office, a whistle-blower, came forward and said, ‘I gave them that information in the middle to end of January’ and we didn’t get it until June 4th.”

He said he was “beyond” shocked. “It could have derailed the trial,” he said.

This is one example of the reason we need protection for whistleblowers.

Yesterday the Washington Times posted an article about the case, explaining why they felt that it should not have been prosecuted at all:

The jury in the Trayvon Martin case on Saturday night acquitted George Zimmerman, but it should never have gotten that far. The Florida State Attorney’s Office should have dismissed their case before submitting it to the jury. That’s what the law required.

The prosecution failed to prove the defendant’s guilt by any standard of evidence. And based on the standard of probable cause, dismissing the case would have been the right thing to do.

The events surrounding this case are unfortunate–one young man lost his life and another young man has essentially had his life ruined. There are no winners here, and flaming the fires of racial hatred does no one good. George Zimmerman has been tried and found not guilty. In a healthy society, it would end there. Unfortunately I wonder how healthy America is at this moment.

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