If you are upset that the gasoline tax in Massachusetts is now indexed to inflation, here is how you can change that:
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Happening In Massachusetts
Monthly Archives: August 2013
A Republican Leader Finally Figures Out How To Deal With The Media
It would be naive at best to assume that the mainstream media is fair when dealing with Republicans and Democrats. I am sure that the fact that NBC and CNN are planning film projects very favorable to Hillary Clinton as she seeks to be the Democrat candidate for President in 2016 is purely coincidence.
Normally the Republican establishment would stand back and watch this and do nothing, but evidently there is currently some leadership and some backbone in the Republican party. Yesterday Politico reported that the Republican National Committee Chairman, Reince Priebus, has stated that if NBC and CNN go ahead with their plans for a Hillary Clinton movie, he will deny them access to the Republican debates.
The article at Politico reports:
In open letters to the leadership of NBC Universal and CNN International, Priebus expressed his “deep disappointment” over those networks’ decisions to produce films “promoting former Secretary Hillary Clinton ahead of her likely candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016.”
Should the networks fail to pull those films by the RNC’s Summer meeting on August 14, Priebus writes, he will “seek a binding vote of the RNC stating that the committee will neither partner with you in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor.”
“As an American company you have every right to air programming of your choice. But as American citizens, certainly you recognize why many are astounded by your actions, which appear to be a major network’s thinly-veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 election,” Priebus wrote in his letters to NBC chairman Robert Greenblatt and CNN president Jeff Zucker.
Diane Lane will star as Hillary Clinton in the NBC miniseries.
Why Is This Even Being Reported?
If you ever doubted the bias of the mainstream media, this story should help erase that doubt. Reuters reported yesterday that Florida Governor Rick Scott is planning to remove non-U.S. citizens from its voting rolls. That news should be reported on a par with “people on Main Street plan to walk their dogs after work.” It’s not news–it’s simply something that should routinely happen.
Voter fraud is a problem in the United States. I am not sure it is enough of a problem to throw an election, although there are some serious questions about voter fraud in the past.
In July, Fox News reported that a Cincinnati poll worker has been sentenced to jail for voting multiple times in the last election. Again, this was probably not an isolated incident. True The Vote in Texas found about 1,500 legitimate voters in a group of 25,000 registered by an activist group.
The Reuters article about Florida reports:
Last year, Florida officials said they had drawn up an initial list of 182,000 potential non-citizens. But that number was reduced to fewer than 200 after election officials acknowledged errors on the original list.
In identifying potential non-citizens, Florida officials sent their information to county election supervisors who then mailed letters to voters requesting proof they were U.S. citizens. If no response was received, the voter was dropped from the rolls.
The effort, which angered some county election supervisors, was the subject of lawsuits from five voter protection groups and at least two individual plaintiffs.
Do 200 votes matter? Two hundred votes from non-citizens combined with fraudulent absentee votes do matter.
In June of this year, Breitbart.com reported on some investigations of voter fraud in Florida that may have stolen a very close election.
The article reports:
When the story first broke that Democratic Congressman Joe Garcia’s main-man/Chief of Staff/campaign advisor Jeffrey Garcia, along with two others were implicated in an alleged fraudulent absentee ballot request scandal, the political community immediately turned their eyes on the possibility that this same alleged voter fraud could have been conducted in Murphy’s race against former Congressman Allen West.
Jeffrey Garcia also worked for Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy, supposedly doing the same kind of advising that he was doing for Garcia.
There are two things that will keep our representative republic safe. One is educated voters and the other is honest elections. Every state needs to do everything it can to ensure that its voter rolls are accurate and include only American citizens who actually live in that state. What Florida is doing should be seen as an example of what is supposed to happen. Trying to ensure the integrity of your voting rolls should not be newsworthy–it should be routine.
One Man’s Actions Result In A Major Loss For A Town
The Attleboro Sun Chronicle reported today that the Massachusetts Gaming Commission has removed Plainridge Race Track, Plainville, Massachusetts, from consideration from Massachusetts’ one slot machine license.
The article reports:
It voted unanimously that the owners of the harness track had failed to demonstrate they could properly run a gambling establishment after admitting they did not realize former President Gary Piontkowski had been taking money from the track for years.
The track is now out of the running for the state’s sole slot machine license that had had five suitors.
The actions of one man will cost the Town of Plainville a projected income of $2 million a year.
The article further reports:
“But it has always been our commitment to establish that the integrity of this process is our single highest priority. No other considerations will compromise that commitment. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the tremendous work by the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau as well as our many partners in their ongoing efforts on these important matters.”
The bureau had uncovered the Piontkowski practice of taking money from the track, while the track reported the actions as disbursements.
When the bureau began asking questions, Piontkowski was replaced in April, although he and track officials claimed it was for health reasons.
Chief Financial Officer Timothy Peterson then resigned and did not appear at a commission hearing on the matter.
Principals Stanley Fulton and Alfred Ross said they were unaware of the situation and were passive investors.
Plainridge Race Track has been losing money for years. The slot machines were considered something that would save the track and save harness racing in Massachusetts. It is unfortunate that the actions of one man may result in the death of harness racing in the state.
For Your Consideration
DaTechGuy is a friend of mine. He blogs at DaTechGuy.com. He also has a radio show that I have guest hosted and been a guest on. He does his homework, does his research, and has good connections within the new media. He posted a story today written by a friend of his. The story is wild, but feasible. I submit it for your consideration.
The source story appeared in the Conservative Report Online, and was written by Chip Jones. DaTechGuy picked up the story and added his comments.
Some highlights from the story at the Conservative Report Online:
First, it is reported that an Army Special Forces team was present with an AC-130U Spooky (also known as a Spectre Gunship) on the tarmac at the airport in Tripoli, Libya. The Spooky is a technologically sophisticated, tactical aircraft, operated by the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command.
It operates under the overall Special Operations Command stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, which is reportedly in charge of all military special operations units, including: Army Special Forces, Navy SEALS, Rangers and certain Marine units, as well as the USAF AC-130Us, and “stealth Blackhawks,” used in the Bin Laden raid.
…The second, and most troubling aspect of the refusal to issue Cross Border Authority is, who issued the refusal. Rather than the President, the Commander In Chief, making critical decisions, granting or denying the authority to initiate offensive-actions in support of our valiant fighting men, the decision not to take action was made by a person, to whom the people did not elect, nor did the Congress have confirmation power over.
The military-order, not to initiate action, saving our men in Benghazi, was issued by the President’s Advisor, Valerie Jarrett.
DaTechGuy sent me an email today that included the above story. These were his closing comments on the email:
I know the author of this article personally and I hope to speak to him later today but I want to note one final thing.
Five years in fact even three years ago if someone was saying something like this I’d have dismissed it out of hand.
Not anymore
I have no idea what to think about this story. Does it matter that Valerie Jarrett refused to issue the Cross Border Authority? Would President Obama have done the same thing if he were there? Was she representing the wishes of the President? And finally, how many Americans will be troubled by this news? Does this trouble you?
Why Civil Unions Make More Sense Than Gay Marriage
The idea of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights is that these documents protect the rights of all Americans. Theoretically no person or group has more or less rights than any other person or group. However, some recent decisions by courts and lawmakers have put the idea of protecting the rights of all Americans in danger. Britain is learning a lesson that I fear America will soon be learning.
On Saturday, the International Business Times reported the story of Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow. In 1999, these two men were the first gay couple to be named as parents on a British birth certificate when they adopted a baby. The men entered a civil partnership in 2006. Now they are ready for the next step.
The article reports:
Now the pair, who entered a civil partnership in 2006, are planning to take another pivotal step forward for gay rights in the UK, after running out of options in their attempts to get married in church.
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow said: “I want to go into my church and marry my husband.
“The only way forward for us now is to make a challenge in the courts against the Church.”
Although the government lifted the ban on same-sex marriages in July, David Cameron promised Britain’s religious institutions they will not be forced to conduct gay weddings.
So why am I bringing this up? If a church believes what the Bible teaches about homosexuality, doesn’t the Pastor have the right to refuse to perform gay weddings based on his right to practice his religion? The only way to avoid this dilemma is to put marriage under the jurisdiction of civil law and let church weddings be a private church issue. If a church chooses to perform a gay wedding, they should be free to do so, but it is wrong to use the law to coerce a Pastor to do something that is against a fundamental belief.
Civil unions for everyone is one way to protect everyone’s rights on the issue of gay marriage. We need to protect the rights of Americans to practice their religion.
More Questions Than Answers
John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line yesterday that asks a very interesting question about the Benghazi attack.
The article at Power Line links back to a Jake Tapper CNN article referenced on this site on August 2. The article confirmed a rumor that many CIA operatives were on the ground at Benghazi during the attack on September 11, 2012, and that those operatives were being muzzled by the government. The obvious question being asked is, “What is being covered up?”
The cover-up began instantly when a video with very few YouTube hits was blamed for the attack on Benghazi. Why was it instantly necessary to provide a cover story for this attack? Was this political–if it was terrorism, it might impact the election–or was this about something entirely different?
The article at Power Line points out some basic facts:
So, what do we make of all of this? Tapper’s reporting points toward the conclusion that the longstanding rumor to the effect that the terrorist attack occurred during a top-secret arms transfer mission is true. But how much does that really explain? It seems unlikely that the CIA mission prompted the attack: we now know that the Syrian rebels consist in substantial part of al Qaeda elements, and if arms were sent from Libya to Syria, al Qaeda probably wound up with some of them. So why would al Qaeda want to interrupt the CIA mission via an attack on the American compound in Benghazi?
…So I find it hard to understand how the current revelations fit with what we already know–or think we know–about Benghazi, or why the administration and the CIA are now so intent on covering up whatever the Agency was up to at the famous “annex.” My sense is that the current reporting leaves us a long way from understanding what really happened on September 11, 2012.
It will be interesting to see if we actually have the truth about Benghazi before President Obama is finished his second term.
What Does This Say About The Future Of American Society?
Today’s U.K. Mail online reported that there has been a spike in fights recently at Chuck E. Cheese restaurants. Now I will admit that it has been a few years since I was in a Chuck E. Cheese–my youngest child turns 39 this year–but I don’t remember fights being part of the entertainment.
The article reports:
The elements within the environment can stimulate aggressive, impulsive behaviors,’ Dr. Dean Leav, told HLN. Not to be underestimated, Leav said, is the indulgence of alcohol.
‘Situations that involve a group of excited people and alcohol can often lead to acts of violence. A classic example is the fights that frequently break out during baseball games,’ she said.
But Chuck E. Cheese hasn’t always been a place where fights routinely happen. According to the company, in its more than 35 years, there has been a relatively small amount of violence.
In 2012, 99.99% of approximately 65 million guest visits at Chuck E. Cheese’s occurred without incident and resulted in smiles,” the company said.
Leay said that witnessing these types of incidents can be harmful to children long-term.
‘Many adults have poor impulse control,’ he said. “They frequently fail to consider the consequences of their actions even when kids are present.’
The last statement above is a bit scary–if adults have poor impulse control, how can they teach their children to have good impulse control.
No one is a perfect parent–they don’t exist, but there are many resources available to help parents with their own impulse control and to help parents become better parents to their children. Chuck E. Cheese should be a place to have fun–fights are totally out of order.
Just a note–as I said–I’m past the Chuck E. Cheese stage, but when I retired, my boss allowed me to have my retirement party at Dave & Busters. I told him I was retiring–I wasn’t dead–and wanted to have fun. That was a wonderful way to retire!
Something Nice To Watch On The Weekend
Found on YouTube:
Enjoy!
The Real Jobs Numbers
PJ Media posted a story yesterday about some of the less-heralded numbers in the just-released jobs report. The article quotes a website called zerohedge.com which contains the following chart.
This is the jobs picture for 2013:
Source: Part-Time and Full-Time and BLS
Some of the numbers at PJ Media:
In July, there were 176,000 part time jobs created while only 92,000 full time jobs.
– Of the 953,000 jobs “created” so far in 2013, only 23%, or 222,000, were full-time. 731,000 were part time.
– 8.5 million workers are working part-time despite wanting full time employment. That number is unchanged from last month.
– The average hourly workweek slipped to 34.7 hours. 35 hours is considered full time.
Under ObamaCare, 30 hours is considered full-time–that is the point at which an employer will be required to provide health insurance for an employee. Unfortunately, if ObamaCare stays in place, we will see more part-time workers in the future and less full-time workers. Americans will become poorer under ObamaCare in addition to having health care that is not as good as it is now. There will be less economic equity under ObamaCare than there is now–there will be a serious earnings gap between those employees that are working full time and those who are working part time. It is quite possible that ObamaCare will ultimately eliminate the American middle class.
Fired For Breaking A Rule Before It Was A Rule
As I write this, there is no lawsuit connected to this story. The person who would normally be entitled to file a lawsuit has not indicated that he will do so, although he has not totally ruled it out.
On Thursday, the Daily Caller reported the story about Drew Johnson, formerly one of the editors of the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press. Mr. Johnson was fired on Thursday for breaking a rule on Monday–the rule was not put in place until Tuesday. So what was Mr. Johnson’s infraction? Mr. Johnson changed the title on an editorial to read “Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough.” This headline appeared on the day President Obama visited Chattanooga to promote his new jobs program.
Despite the headline, the Free Press kept the headline up on its website and received a lot of internet traffic related to the article.
The article at the Daily Caller reports:
However, two days after the editorial had been published he was called in and fired for the piece.
“So I was brought into human resources today and I was told, ‘You’re being fired for violating the policy that you have to have an editor sign off when you make a change to a headline,’” he said. “Well, I said, ‘That’s funny, because that policy wasn’t in place until after I wrote the piece and you guys told me that was the policy on Tuesday. And I wrote the piece on Monday.’”
Mr. Johnson is looking for a new job. Gone are the days when fiery editorials on both sides of the political spectrum graced our newspapers. Unless the media begins to report both sides of the story, we will lose our representative republic. What happened to Drew Johnson is an outrage, but somehow most of the media seems to be unconcerned.
Underneath The Jobs Numbers
Yahoo Finance posted an article today that included the Labor Force Participation Rate in the latest jobs numbers.
According to the article:
The civilian labor force decreased by 37,000 to 155.80 million in July, while those not in the labor force rose by 240,000 to 89.96 million.
The decrease in the percentage of Americans in the labor force–63.4% last month from 63.5% the month before–is one of the main reasons for the drop in the unemployment rate–to 7.4% in July from 7.6% in June.
Many of the jobs added were part time jobs and many jobs changed from full time to part time. ObamaCare has created some serious problems for the American economy (ObamaCare is responsible for the growth of part time jobs) and will continue to do so until it is defunded and stopped. I am not sure if the Republicans in the House of Representatives are going to get anywhere with their attempts at defunding it, but I give them credit for trying.
Those Pesky Fact-Checkers
In his latest comments on the Keystone Pipeline, President Obama claimed that the Pipeline would create approximately 2,000 jobs during construction and later approximately 50 and 100 jobs. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?
The Daily Caller fact-checkers reviewed those statements in an article posted on Wednesday.
The article quotes the White House response when asked about these numbers:
“There are a range of estimates out there about the economic impact of the pipeline,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. “What the president is interested in doing is draining the politics out of this debate and evaluating this project on the merits.”
The State Department reported that the pipeline would directly create 3,900 jobs per year, and 42,100 jobs if indirect jobs are included. Even the Sierra Club, one of the leading groups campaigning against the pipeline cites the 3,900 jobs figure — higher than the president’s unsupported numbers.
The only estimate that even comes close to what President Obama claimed was one done by the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations Global Labor Institute, which opposes the pipeline.
The thing to note here is that the Pipeline would create jobs. America desperately needs jobs. Aside from the concept of energy independence and national security, it might be a really good idea to build the Keystone Pipeline, but meanwhile Warren Buffett‘s railroad is earning millions hauling the oil by rail. Notice, the oil will travel. The question is how it will travel and where it will travel. If America stalls on approving the pipeline long enough, the oil will travel by a new pipeline across Canada to a seaport where it will be shipped to China. It is not in America’s interest to oppose the Keystone Pipeline.
Laws For Thee But Not For Me
Hot Air is reporting today that President Obama has found a solution to the high cost of ObamaCare for some Americans. Strangely enough, those Americans are the Americans involved in the government on Capitol Hill. When ObamaCare was passed, Senator Chuck Grassley put an item in the bill that requires that both members and their aides must be covered by plans “created” by the law or “offered through an exchange” — in other words, if Congress was going to vote this thing in, then they were going to have to live with it, too. Congress panicked when its members realized how much the price of their health insurance was going to increase under ObamaCare.
Hot Air quotes Politico on the solution to the problem:
Lawmakers and staff can breathe easy — their health care tab is not going to soar next year.
The Office of Personnel Management, under heavy pressure from Capitol Hill, will issue a ruling that says the government can continue to make a contribution to the health care premiums of members of Congress and their aides, according to several Hill sources. …
Just Wednesday, POLITICO reported that President Barack Obama told Democratic senators that he was personally involved in finding a solution. …
Obama’s involvement in solving this impasse was unusual, to say the least. But it came after serious griping from both sides of the aisle about the potential of a “brain drain.” The fear, as told by sources in both parties, was that aides would head for more lucrative jobs, spooked by the potential for spiking health premiums.
The bottom line–taxpayers will be paying for Congress’s ObamaCare expenses. No one will be paying for the taxpayer’s ObamaCare expenses.
Incredible Coincidence Or Government Thuggery?
The Benghazi attack is still surrounded by more questions than answers. Yesterday CNN posted an exclusive story about a number of CIA agents who were on the ground in the outpost at Benghazi during the attack. Since the attack, many of these agents have been recovering from the wounds, but all of the agents have remained out of sight. Why?
The article reports:
Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency’s workings.
The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.
It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.
In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, “You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.”
Another says, “You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation.”
“Agency employees typically are polygraphed every three to four years. Never more than that,” said former CIA operative and CNN analyst Robert Baer.
In other words, the rate of the kind of polygraphs alleged by sources is rare.
“If somebody is being polygraphed every month, or every two months it’s called an issue polygraph, and that means that the polygraph division suspects something, or they’re looking for something, or they’re on a fishing expedition. But it’s absolutely not routine at all to be polygraphed monthly, or bi-monthly,” said Baer.
CIA spokesman Dean Boyd asserted in a statement that the agency has been open with Congress.
If the CIA has been all that open with Congress, why are agents being kept from the press and subjected to lie detector tests much more frequently than usual?
With this is mind, let’s take a look at the timeline regarding the resignation of General David Petraeus as the head of the CIA. Regardless of his affair, General Petraeus is known for being an honest man who loves his country and believes in America. There are a lot of stories about when General Petraeus began his affair with Paula Broadwell. The timeline on this is important–was the affair going on in early September 2011, when General Petraeus took over as the head of the CIA? If it was, how did the people who screened him for the job miss it? If the affair began later, was the Obama Administration aware of it? Why does this matter? The attack in Benghazi took place on September 11, 2012. General Petraeus resigned on November 9, 2012. The cover-up of Benghazi began immediately–keep in mind the only person in jail for the Benghazi attack is the filmmaker who made a film no one saw and had nothing to do with the attack. Is it possible that General Petraeus was told to go along with the cover-up or have his affair revealed?
Regardless of the scenario anyone chooses, it is obvious that there has been a cover-up of what happened in Benghazi. The thing to keep in mind is that cover-up, deny, and delay are all standard tactics of the Obama Administration. There are two main theories I have heard on what was going on in Benghazi — number one that it was a gun running operation supplying arms to the Syrian rebels, and number two that the attack was supposed to be a peaceful kidnapping of Ambassador Stevens so that he could later be swapped for the Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (the Blind Sheik), currently serving a life sentence at Butner Federal Medical Center in North Carolina.
Neither scenario would be popular with the American public, but I suspect the spin artists in the media could dress up either one to make it work. With the recent reporting on Benghazi by CNN, it may actually be possible that Americans will eventually know the full story of what happened at Benghazi on September 11 of last year.
When Government Takes Up Bullying
One of the dangers of oversized government is the impact it has on the average citizen. Another danger is that government can become a bully to people it disagrees with. It is becoming very obvious that the current administration has no problem using the government to bully people who do not agree with administration policies.
The National Review posted a story yesterday about emails between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) regarding conservative political groups.
The article reports:
The correspondence suggests the discrimination of conservative groups extended beyond the IRS and into the FEC, where an attorney from the agency’s enforcement division in at least one case sought and received tax information about the status of a conservative group, the American Future Fund, before recommending that the commission prosecute it for violations of campaign-finance law. Lerner, the former head of the IRS’s exempt-organizations division, worked at the FEC from 1986 to 1995, and was known for aggressive investigation of conservative groups during her tenure there, too.
Under Rule 6103, the IRS is prohibited from sharing confidential taxpayer information, but the e-mail suggests that Lois Lerner may have shared the information in spite of the law.
There is a pattern to these “:phony scandals.” All of them include an arrogance on the part of the Executive Branch of our government that simply ignores both the law and Congressional oversight. There seems to be an element of corruption that has leaked into a number of areas in the Executive Branch. The Congress needs to hold the people who broke the law accountable.
Why Didn’t They Just Send Him A Fed-Ex Package?
Fed-Ex seems to have the ability to deliver a package to anyone anywhere in the world. They are a whiz at locating people. The FBI should have contacted them to arrange an interview with one of the suspects in the Benghazi attack.
Mediaite reported yesterday that CNN had interviewed Ahmed Abdu Khattala.
The article states:
Khattala told Damon that no one from either the Libyan or American governments has contacted him asking for his take on the events of that deadly night in 2012. “Even the investigative team did not try to contact me,” he said of the FBI team that traveled to Libya in the wake of the attack.
Damon said that Khattala told her that he would be happy to speak with American investigators about what happened on the night of the Benghazi attack. She stressed, however, that he would not voluntarily submit to interrogation.
CNN posted an article today about their success in locating a possible suspect in the Benghazi attack. The article states:
Eight GOP lawmakers are asking that incoming FBI Director James Comey brief Congress within 30 days about the investigation. They say the administration’s inquiry into the September 11, 2011, attacks in Libya has been “simply unacceptable,” according to a draft letter obtained by CNN.
“One of the pertinent questions today is why we have not captured or killed the terrorist who committed these attacks?” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told reporters. “News out today that CNN was able to go in and talk to one of the suspected terrorists, how come the military hasn’t been able to get after them and capture or kill the people? How come the FBI isn’t doing this and yet CNN is?”
It is really pathetic that CNN spends two hours interviewing someone who may be connected with the attack on Benghazi and the FBI doesn’t seem to be interested in talking to the person.
It has been almost a year since the attack on Benghazi. Congress is right to demand more information from the FBI regarding the investigation. Hopefully, someone at the FBI will provide that information. Unfortunately the Obama Administration has not been kind to whistleblowers when they reveal things that are unfavorable to the administration, so it is a safe bet that we will not find the people responsible for the attack on Benghazi until we have a totally different administration in Washington.
