Tag Archives: Los Angeles

Designed To Tug At Your Heart Strings

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Somehow most of the American media missed the fact that the young girl who approached the Pope about her fears that her parents would be deported was part of a staged event.

The U.K. Daily Mail posted the story yesterday. Follow the link to see all of the pictures.

The story relates:

Security had stopped Sophie before she could approach the pope on her first attempt during a parade at the Ellipse outside the White House.

On her carefully orchestrated attempt, her father lifted her over the barricade, and she was able to hand him the letter which included a touching drawing of Francis holding hands with children of differing ethnicity. Over the picture it read: ‘My friends and I love each other no matter our skin color.’

The schoolgirl said she already has a second letter which she plans to give to President Barack Obama someday.

In an interview with NBC before the trip, Sophie said she wanted Pope Francis to ask Obama about legalizing all immigrants in the United States. 

Gateway Pundit reported yesterday:

…Her father Raul Cruz , who like Sophie’s mother, came to the U.S. from Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca about 10 years ago, said they were ‘so happy, so excited.’ Sophie and her sister were born in the United States and are therefore American citizens.

The Cruz family had traveled to see the Pope’s parade in Washington as part of a trip organized by Hermandad Mexicana Transnacional, based in Los Angeles, for six children and 19 adults, hoping to deliver their message on immigration.

I do feel sympathy for this family. However, their problem began with an illegal act–they came into America illegally and had children here. This is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue. The child was very sweet, but the moment was designed to manipulate the American public. I object.

Donald Trump’s Immigration Plan

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I will repeat–I am not endorsing Donald Trump, but a friend emailed this to me and I think it is interesting. Also, I am told that anything with Donald Trump’s name in it will get multiple clicks, and I am not above pandering. At any rate, this is Donald Trump’s plan:

IMMIGRATION REFORM THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

The three core principles of Donald J. Trump‘s immigration plan

When politicians talk about “immigration reform” they mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders. The Schumer-Rubio immigration bill was nothing more than a giveaway to the corporate patrons who run both parties.

Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first – not wealthy globetrotting donors. We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own. That must change. Here are the three core principles of real immigration reform:

1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.

2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.

3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

Make Mexico Pay For The Wall

For many years, Mexico’s leaders have been taking advantage of the United States by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country (as well as in other Latin American countries). They have even published pamphlets on how to illegally immigrate to the United States. The costs for the United States have been extraordinary: U.S. taxpayers have been asked to pick up hundreds of billions in healthcare costs, housing costs, education costs, welfare costs, etc. Indeed, the annual cost of free tax credits alone paid to illegal immigrants quadrupled to $4.2 billion in 2011. The effects on jobseekers have also been disastrous, and black Americans have been particularly harmed.

The impact in terms of crime has been tragic. In recent weeks, the headlines have been covered with cases of criminals who crossed our border illegally only to go on to commit horrific crimes against Americans. Most recently, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, with a long arrest record, is charged with breaking into a 64 year-old women’s home, crushing her skull and eye sockets with a hammer, raping her, and murdering her. The Police Chief in Santa Maria says the “blood trail” leads straight to Washington.

In 2011, the Government Accountability Office found that there were a shocking 3 million arrests attached to the incarcerated alien population, including tens of thousands of violent beatings, rapes and murders.

Meanwhile, Mexico continues to make billions on not only our bad trade deals but also relies heavily on the billions of dollars in remittances sent from illegal immigrants in the United States back to Mexico ($22 billion in 2013 alone).

In short, the Mexican government has taken the United States to the cleaners. They are responsible for this problem, and they must help pay to clean it up.

The cost of building a permanent border wall pales mightily in comparison to what American taxpayers spend every single year on dealing with the fallout of illegal immigration on their communities, schools and unemployment offices.

Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards – of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options].  We will not be taken advantage of anymore.

Defend The Laws And Constitution Of The United States

America will only be great as long as America remains a nation of laws that lives according to the Constitution. No one is above the law. The following steps will return to the American people the safety of their laws, which politicians have stolen from them:

Triple the number of ICE officers. As the President of the ICE Officers’ Council explained in Congressional testimony: “Only approximately 5,000 officers and agents within ICE perform the lion’s share of ICE’s immigration mission…Compare that to the Los Angeles Police Department at approximately 10,000 officers. Approximately 5,000 officers in ICE cover 50 states, Puerto Rico and Guam, and are attempting to enforce immigration law against 11 million illegal aliens already in the interior of the United States. Since 9-11, the U.S. Border Patrol has tripled in size, while ICE’s immigration enforcement arm, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), has remained at relatively the same size.” This will be funded by accepting the recommendation of the Inspector General for Tax Administration and eliminating tax credit payments to illegal immigrants.

Nationwide e-verify. This simple measure will protect jobs for unemployed Americans.

Mandatory return of all criminal aliens. The Obama Administration has released 76,000 aliens from its custody with criminal convictions since 2013 alone. All criminal aliens must be returned to their home countries, a process which can be aided by canceling any visas to foreign countries which will not accept their own criminals, and making it a separate and additional crime to commit an offense while here illegally.

Detention—not catch-and-release. Illegal aliens apprehended crossing the border must be detained until they are sent home, no more catch-and-release.

Defund sanctuary cities. Cut-off federal grants to any city which refuses to cooperate with federal law enforcement.

Enhanced penalties for overstaying a visa. Millions of people come to the United States on temporary visas but refuse to leave, without consequence. This is a threat to national security. Individuals who refuse to leave at the time their visa expires should be subject to criminal penalties; this will also help give local jurisdictions the power to hold visa overstays until federal authorities arrive. Completion of a visa tracking system – required by law but blocked by lobbyists – will be necessary as well.

Cooperate with local gang task forces. ICE officers should accompany local police departments conducting raids of violent street gangs like MS-13 and the 18th street gang, which have terrorized the country. All illegal aliens in gangs should be apprehended and deported. Again, quoting Chris Crane: “ICE Officers and Agents are forced to apply the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Directive, not to children in schools, but to adult inmates in jails. If an illegal-alien inmate simply claims eligibility, ICE is forced to release the alien back into the community. This includes serious criminals who have committed felonies, who have assaulted officers, and who prey on children…ICE officers should be required to place detainers on every illegal alien they encounter in jails and prisons, since these aliens not only violated immigration laws, but then went on to engage in activities that led to their arrest by police; ICE officers should be required to issue Notices to Appear to all illegal aliens with criminal convictions, DUI convictions, or a gang affiliation; ICE should be working with any state or local drug or gang task force that asks for such assistance.”

End birthright citizenship. This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. By a 2:1 margin, voters say it’s the wrong policy, including Harry Reid who said “no sane country” would give automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.

Put American Workers First

Decades of disastrous trade deals and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class. Today, nearly 40% of black teenagers are unemployed. Nearly 30% of Hispanic teenagers are unemployed. For black Americans without high school diplomas, the bottom has fallen out: more than 70% were employed in 1960, compared to less than 40% in 2000. Across the economy, the percentage of adults in the labor force has collapsed to a level not experienced in generations. As CBS news wrote in a piece entitled “America’s incredible shrinking middle class”: “If the middle-class is the economic backbone of America, then the country is developing osteoporosis.”

The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans – including immigrants themselves and their children – to earn a middle class wage. Nearly half of all immigrants and their US-born children currently live in or near poverty, including more than 60 percent of Hispanic immigrants. Every year, we voluntarily admit another 2 million new immigrants, guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing all-time historic record population of 42 million immigrants. We need to control the admission of new low-earning workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream.

Additionally, we need to stop giving legal immigrant visas to people bent on causing us harm. From the 9/11 hijackers, to the Boston Bombers, and many others, our immigration system is being used to attack us. The President of the immigration caseworkers union declared in a statement on ISIS: “We’ve become the visa clearinghouse for the world.”

Here are some additional specific policy proposals for long-term reform:

Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs. We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program’s lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.

Requirement to hire American workers first. Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need to companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.

End welfare abuse. Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S.

Jobs program for inner city youth. The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program.

Refugee program for American children. Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to crack down on abuses. Use the monies saved on expensive refugee programs to help place American children without parents in safer homes and communities, and to improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods in the United States.

Immigration moderation. Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers.

I don’t agree with everything listed, but I think it is time to have a discussion that includes compassion for refugees who want to come here and some protection for unemployed Americans.The ideas above might be a place to start the discussion.

The Twenty-Eight Pages

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Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about a lawsuit that is moving forward   against the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The lawsuit is asking that the twenty-eight pages of the 9/11 Commission Report that have remained classified be revealed.

It is generally understood that the twenty-eight pages have to do with the role of Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks.

The article reports:

During a July 30 court hearing, lawyers for 9/11 victims’ families and insurers revealed that the staffers’ most serious allegations against the Saudis were stricken from the final draft of the 9/11 Commission report as well.

“They were removed at the 11th hour by the senior staff,” plaintiffs’ attorney Sean Carter of Cozen O’Connor said, explaining that the decision was a “political matter.”

Carter said that the staff investigators “felt they had documented a direct link between the Saudi government and the Sept. 11 plot based on the explosive material they had uncovered concerning the activities of Fahad al-Thumairy and Omar al-Bayoumi.”

Thumairy was employed at the time as a Saudi religious cleric and diplomat in Los Angeles, while Bayoumi was employed by the Saudi Arabian civil aviation authority in San Diego.

The suit charges that two of the Saudi hijackers, who first entered the United States in Los Angeles before traveling to Washington to attack the Pentagon, were funded through the Saudi embassy and consulate — and that they were handled primarily by Saudi “agent” Bayoumi while staying in San Diego.

It would be very nice to have these pages unclassified so that the public could draw its own conclusions about the events on September 11, 2001. This might also be a good time to mention that our alliance with Saudi Arabia is based on two things. First of all, the Saudis have helped keep the American dollar as the exchange medium in the trading of oil. That is one of the reasons the American dollar has not fallen under the weight of the debt incurred by overspending. The second basis for the alliance is America’s dependence on foreign oil. If you are uncomfortable with the alliance with a country that does not allow the building of Christian churches and does not allow women any sort of equality, then you need to support the development of America’s natural gas and oil resources.

It is quite possible that Saudi Arabia played a major role in the events of 9/11, but until America becomes energy independent, we will continue our alliance with the Saudis. That is the price of dependency.

What It Means To Invest In A Town

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I love what Jeff Kinney (author of the Wimpy Kid books) is doing for Plainville, Massachusetts. He has removed an eyesore from the center of town and replaced it with a wonderful bookstore, but he hasn’t stopped there.

The Attleboro Sun Chronicle posted a story today about his latest contribution to the town.

The article reports:

The Kinneys were at a book conference in Los Angeles, where Julie Kinney found a booth staffed by Write Brain Books publishing company.

The firm publishes children’s book with illustrations, but no text. Children are expected to write their own stories to go with the drawings.

Julie Kinney brought four of the books to Wood School in Plainville, where fourth-grade teacher Devon Almeida turned them into a major project for her students.

Now, their versions of the books have been published and are going on sale at An Unlikely Story bookstore in Plainville, which is owed by Jeff Kinney.

The children presented their stories to parents Wednesday at the school. Write Brain founder and CEO Meredith Scott Lynn flew in from California for the occasion.

I love the fact that the books the students wrote will be sold at An Unlikely Story bookstore. Thank you, Jeff Kinney, for all you are doing for Plainville.

 

Hoisted On Their Own Petard?

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Yesterday the Los Angeles Times reported that Los Angeles labor leaders, who recently supported a minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are now asking for changes in the law that would exempt companies whose workforces are unionized.

The article reports:

For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase.

But Rusty Hicks, who heads the county Federation of Labor and helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition, said Tuesday night that companies with workers represented by unions should have leeway to negotiate a wage below that mandated by the law.

“With a collective bargaining agreement, a business owner and the employees negotiate an agreement that works for them both. The agreement allows each party to prioritize what is important to them,” Hicks said in a statement. “This provision gives the parties the option, the freedom, to negotiate that agreement. And that is a good thing.”

Laws for thee, but not for me. If a unionized company can be exempt in order to stay in business, why can’t a non-unionized restaurant be exempt?

The Council voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. The increase in the minimum wage will be a problem for both restaurants and fast food places. The increase will also pose a problem for other small businesses.

Looking Past The Obvious

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On Monday, the New York Post posted an article about the push to move the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Contrary to what is true in most case, it isn’t about the money.

The article reports:

A Times editorial last week cheered Los Angeles’ enactment of a $15-an-hour minimum wage — but noted that restaurants, particularly fast-food joints, don’t like it. Said The Times: “The restaurant industry . . . will not go down without a fight.”

We didn’t think that bringing down an entire industry was what the campaign for a $15 minimum was supposed to be about. Oops.

Back in March, we noted that a similar hike in Seattle’s minimum wage was leading to a spate of local restaurant closings, given that labor costs account for 36 percent of the average restaurant’s earnings.

The left has been on a war against McDonald’s for years. I will admit that I do not routinely eat at McDonald’s (although I love their mango smoothies), but that is my choice–just because I don’t eat there doesn’t mean that I have the right to prevent anyone else from eating there.

The article cites one example of the impact of the minimum wage hike:

Case in point: Z Pizza, which has to shut down — putting all 11 employees out of work — because its owner can’t afford the higher labor costs. Ritu Shah Burnham says she tried layoffs, cutting hours, price hikes and not paying herself — to no avail.

And while small businesses have six years to phase in the wage hikes, she has only two, since she’s a franchise of a large chain.

The Times dismissed such concerns, saying minimum-wage hikes can be offset by higher prices and by “paying executives and shareholders less.”

That didn’t work for Burnham, who has no shareholders and is no executive — just a victimized small-business owner whose workers’ hourly wage is about to be cut to zero, thanks to their “advocates.”

It is time to send all of the big government types home. The only way to turn this around is to elect people at all levels of government who believe in freedom from excessive government regulation. The big government types are killing small business, and thus, killing the economy.

Quote Of The Week

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Taken from a Power Line article posted today by Steven Hayward:

I have a good conservative friend who has lived in Washington, DC most of his adult life, where he is a registered Democrat, so that he could vote for Marion Barry in Democratic primaries, on the theory that “if you can’t have effective government, at least you can have entertaining government.”

The article is about the Democrat race in California to replace Barbara Boxer. The author of the article feels that the above quote defines the race.

The article also mentions another aspect of the race:

Former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is said to be interested in running, and also Rep. Loretta Sanchez. Mixed-race (and therefore a two-fer) Attorney General Kamala Harris has indicated she may make the race. Lt. Governor Gavin Newsome, perhaps the leading white guy Dem in the state, will probably take a pass and run for governor in 2018 instead. So is there another white guy anywhere who might make a serious candidate? Ah yes, Tom Steyer is thinking about it. I think he’s going to be surprised when he finds out he doesn’t have the proper melanin privilege for today’s Democratic Party.

But he will deliver lots of comedy gold in any case, such as his comment to the Puffington Host a few days ago that “People rail that democracy has been subverted to powerful economic interests, that ‘we the people’ have been overlooked. Based on what I have seen over the last several years, I fear there’s some truth in that charge, and that scares me—badly.” “Powerful economic interests”?—from a billionaire who spent $100 million trying to influence the last election? I’d say “that’s rich,” but the irony would be too obvious, even for a liberal.

California is, after all, the home of the entertainment industry.

Refusing To Learn The Lessons Of History

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On Thursday, Michael Barone at the Washington Examiner posted an article about a government move to again encourage subprime lending in the mortgage market.

The article reports:

I have written frequently that I estimate that one-third of the mortgage foreclosures in the 2007-10 period were of Hispanic homebuyers. Very many had been granted mortgages, despite bad or dubious credit, by lenders who then fobbed them off on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or other mortgage securitizers, in the meantime gaining brownie points with regulators for lending to “minorities.” Evidence supporting this comes, inadvertently, from an Urban Institute report spotlighted by the industrious and provocative blogger Steve Sailer. You can see that there was a huge increase in the number of mortgages granted to Hispanics in the years running up to 2006, when housing prices peaked, centered in metro Los Angeles and the adjacent Inland Empire to the east, in California’s Central Valley and in metro Las Vegas and Phoenix. Not coincidentally, these “sand states” (plus Florida) accounted for more than half of mortgage foreclosures when housing prices plummeted and buyers who suddenly found themselves underwater and/or out of work defaulted on their mortgages.

Both President Bush and President Clinton encouraged home buying for Hispanic buyers, which resulted in many of the previous income/mortgage ratio standards for granting mortgages being ignored. This resulted in the housing bubble, the crash that followed, and a tremendous amount of money spent in attempting to avoid disaster.

Well, the government has not learned its lesson. The article reports:

Now the Urban Institute and the Obama administration are pushing for more mortgages for blacks and Hispanics with subpar credit ratings. Haven’t America, the world and the intended beneficiaries already suffered enough from this perhaps well-intentioned but indubitably misguided policy?

How many times do we have to do this before we learn that it is not a good idea to lend large sums of money to people who cannot pay it back?

Justice Administered?

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Yesterday the Washington Free Beacon reported that California State Senator Roderick Wright was convicted of eight felony counts including perjury and voter fraud and was sentenced to 90 days in jail. I wonder how many times people who are convicted of eight felony counts are sentenced to only 90 days in jail.

The article reports:

Senator Roderick Wright of Los Angeles was convicted in January of lying about whether he lived in the district he sought to represent, the first in a string of criminal proceedings against three state senators this year that effectively cost Democrats their two-thirds majority in the California Senate.

“This is not what I call a victimless crime,” said Judge Kathleen Kennedy, who denied Wright’s request for a new trial in Los Angeles Superior Court.

She said Wright was no longer eligible to hold elective office in California.

It’s time to clean up politics on all levels. Pay attention to the people in your area running for local offices, and if you see anything strange going on at your local voting place, report it.

 

Using A Fool’s Folly To Gain Political Advantage

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The Democrat party is desperately looking for an issue that will bring Democrats out to vote in this year’s mid-term election. They have a few issues that have worked in the past, but they are having a hard time finding one that will work this year. Well, I think they think they have found their issue–it’s the ongoing problem of racism in America. We had our conservative racist last week–Cliven Bundy was taken to the cleaners by the press. Now we have our Democrat racist this week–Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.

Mr. Sterling was taped by a former girlfriend during an argument. Those tapes were then released to the press as evidence that Mr. Sterling was a racist. At this point I should mention that Mr. Sterling is 80 years old, extremely wealthy and his girlfriend is young, black, and Mexican. He seems more like an older man in the clutches of a gold-digger than a racist.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article on the controversy yesterday.

The article reports:

The more you learn about the story, the stranger it gets. If you listen to the tapes, which have been made public by TMZ and Deadspin, it is hard to make sense of them. Sterling doesn’t want Stiviano to put up photos of herself with African-Americans on Instagram or bring them with her to Los Angeles Clippers games. He says he doesn’t care if she associates or sleeps with black people, just don’t put them up on Instagram. An odd distinction! His request was motivated, evidently, by the fact that one or more of Sterling’s friends called him to comment on the Instagram photos. While Sterling never says this, reading between the lines it appears that someone must have teased him about his mistress consorting with blacks.

As usual, President Obama chose to comment on how this incident shows that America is racist:

“The United States continues to wrestle with the legacy of race and slavery and segregation, that’s still there, the vestiges of discrimination,” Obama said during a news conference in Malaysia, where he was traveling.

No, the incident shows that a wealthy older man is vulnerable to a woman who wants a large portion of his money. Individual people may be racist in America, just as individual people all over the world may have prejudices. However, the comments of a man in a heated domestic argument should not be used to accuse America of being racist. There is also a strong possibility that Mr. Sterling’s girlfriend was baiting him to make sure she got a really good tape. I also wonder if she asked Mr. Sterling for money for the tape before releasing it and if he refused. That may be the reason the tape was released–blackmail didn’t work.

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An Interesting Solution To “Inequality”

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Jonah Goldberg posted an article at Townhall.com today that offers an interesting solution to the ‘inequality’ President Obama and some of the political left seem to be focused on lately. Oddly enough, the solution does not include giving more money or power to Washington.

In referring to the culture of Alaska (many of Mr. Goldberg’s wife’s family members live in Alaska, so he has spent some time there), he notes:

In my experience, Alaska stands out in another way: social equality. When I started going there regularly, I was shocked to discover how casually different economic classes intermingle. Scanning the attendees of a party or patrons of a restaurant, it’s pretty much guesswork to figure out who’s a millionaire and who’s a mechanic. Nothing like that happens in places like Washington, New York or Los Angeles, where upper and lower classes get along little better than the Morlocks and Eloi did in H.G. Wells‘ “The Time Machine.” But it does happen in lots of places — liberal and conservative — outside the Amtrak Acela corridor.

Mr. Goldberg points out a very logical solution to ‘inequality’ in America:

For practical purposes, people don’t live in the United States of America. They live in their neighborhoods, towns and communities. Yes, these are American communities, but your neighbors live in your neighborhood, not seven states over. Your kids don’t go to “U.S. schools”; they go to the school down the road.

Yet most of our money goes to the government in Washington, and so does most of the power. Why not flip that around? Want to see the rich, poor and middle class interact more? Give them a reason to show up to a city council or school board meeting. Sure, money has power at the local level, too, but so do votes.

Moreover, when rich people get their way at the local level, people usually know who they are and why they are doing things. And you can bend their ear at the supermarket or at soccer practice.

But when all the decisions are made in Washington or New York, most Americans are simply out of the loop.

And they resent it.

Having lived in New England for many years, I attended many Town Meetings where budgets, roads, zoning, and community growth were discussed. It was a way to see politics on a local level, and it was a way to be involved in the politics of your town. The taxpayers voted on the budget; the taxpayers voted on the zoning; and the taxpayers got to see their elected city officials at work. The taxpayers also had a chance to talk to their elected officials after the meeting. I don’t know if a Town Meeting would work in a larger setting, but certainly if more Americans felt that they had some sort of power, they would attend some of the various committee meetings in their cities and towns. Involving taxpayers in their local governments would be a step forward. I think Mr. Goldberg is on to something.

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I Have A Card, Why Can’t I See A Doctor?

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One of the distinctions that has not been clearly made in the discussion of ObamaCare is the difference between having a card that says you have medical insurance and actually being able to obtain medical care when you need it. Somehow that has been pretty much left out of the discussion. Well, as theory meets reality, access to care (regardless of whether or not you have insurance) will become an issue.

Yesterday the New York Times posted a story about what is happening to California’s Medicaid program as a result of ObamaCare.

The article tells the story of one California doctor:

Dr. Ted Mazer is one of the few ear, nose and throat specialists in this region who treat low-income people on Medicaid, so many of his patients travel long distances to see him.

But now, as California’s Medicaid program is preparing for a major expansion under President Obama’s health care law, Dr. Mazer says he cannot accept additional patients under the government insurance program for a simple reason: It does not pay enough.

“It’s a bad situation that is likely to be made worse,” he said.

His view is shared by many doctors around the country. Medicaid for years has struggled with a shortage of doctors willing to accept its low reimbursement rates and red tape, forcing many patients to wait for care, particularly from specialists like Dr. Mazer.

In theory, ObamaCare was supposed to help people who were not able to afford health insurance to get medical care. In practice, ObamaCare will probably result in less care and more people with serious health issues not getting the care they need. The promise of “if you like your insurance, you can keep it” has been proven to be false, and now the promise of access to medical care for all Americans is also turning out to be false.

The article further reports:

In California, with the nation’s largest Medicaid population, many doctors say they are already overwhelmed and are unable to take on more low-income patients. Dr. Hector Flores, a primary care doctor in East Los Angeles whose practice has 26,000 patients, more than a third of whom are on Medicaid, said he could accommodate an additional 1,000 Medicaid patients at most.

“There could easily be 10,000 patients looking for us, and we’re just not going to be able to serve them,” said Dr. Flores, who is also the chairman of the family medicine department at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles.

We need to repeal ObamaCare before it does any more damage and replace it with a private-sector-based plan that actually works. If we don’t stop this train wreck now, we may not be able to stop it later.

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Unsettling News

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Even as we focus on budget battles and the problems of the ObamaCare website, there are still other things going on in the world. One of the more disturbing stories to come out this week was about another possible dry run for a future 911-style attack.

Yesterday The Week posted an article detailing an internal memo from the U.S. Airline Pilots Association, which warns of “several cases recently…of what appear to be probes, or dry runs” of 911-style attacks.

The article reports:

It’s common practice for potential terrorists to carry out dress rehearsals of their planned attacks, and most major terror strikes of the last few decades have involved a dummy-run of some sort. Some have even accidentally involved celebrities.

Before al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in western Pennsylvania, killing almost 3,000 people, they carried out a number of dry runs — including one on a flight carrying Oscar-nominated actor James Woods. Four of the future attackers were apparently sitting in first class with Woods on the Boston to Los Angeles flight, and behaved so strangely — sitting erect in their seats and staring ahead for the whole flight — that the veteran Hollywood star called the FBI the day after 9/11 to report his unsettling experience.

As long as radical Islamists exist, we will have the threat of terrorism. The hope is that if there ever is another 911-style attack, passengers will react like those on Flight 93 (only this time successfully landing the plane).

This is very unsettling news, but hopefully we have learned from past experiences.

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One Reason Government Spending Is Out Of Control

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On Saturday the Washington Post posted an article about some of the end-of-the-year spending done by government agencies. The spending is a result of one of the side effects of baseline budgeting, which is something our government needs to get rid of. Baseline budgeting is the concept that a department’s budget is based on how much money they spent in the previous year. If they spend 90 thousand dollars and their budget was 100 thousand dollars, the department budget will be 90 thousand dollars in the following year. If they don’t spend all of the money in their budget, their budget is cut. This creates a mad rush to spend their entire budget by September 30, the end of the fiscal year. If they spend the full amount and ask for a 10 percent increase and get a 5 percent increase, that is considered a 5 percent budget cut. That is how Congress can claim they are cutting the budget while the spending continues to increase. These two concepts explain some of the rather interesting end-of-the-year spending done in the past few weeks by the government. As you read this, remember that this is under sequestration when Democrats are complaining that there is no money.

The article posts some examples of spending in recent weeks:

On Monday, VA paid $27,000 for an order of photographs showing sunsets, mountain peaks and country roads. They would go into a new center serving homeless veterans in Los Angeles; a spokeswoman described the art as “motivational and calming, professionally designed to enhance clinical operations.”

On Tuesday, the USDA bought $127,000 worth of toner cartridges (“end of year,” the order explained). VA spent another $220,000 on artwork for its hospitals.

On Wednesday, the Coast Guard paid $178,000 for cubicle furniture, replacing high-walled cubes with low-walled ones to improve the air flow in a large office area.

“Other higher-priority projects were not able to be executed, so they moved [money] to this lower-priority project” before the year’s end, said Coast Guard spokesman Carlos Diaz. “The money was going to be spent anyway.”

On Thursday, VA was buying art again. It spent $216,000 on artwork for a facility in Florida. In all, preliminary data showed that the agency made at least 18 percent of all its art purchases for the year in this one week. One-sixth of the buying in one-52nd of the year.

This is not a reasonable system. There is a spreadsheet at adelphi.edu that shows the federal deficit over the years. When President Obama took office, the deficit was approximately 12 million dollars. The deficit is now approaching 17 million dollars. That’s a pretty hefty increase in five years. However, the really interesting part of the spreadsheet is the relationship between the deficit and which party controls the House of Representatives. Remember, the House controls the spending. Please follow the link to the spreadsheet and take a look at the history of the federal deficit.

At any rate–baseline budgeting needs to go.

 

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Looking For Your Keys Under The Streetlight

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There is an old joke about a man who was walking around under a streetlight as if he was searching for something. When asked what he was doing, he explained that he had lost his car keys on the other side of the street. When further questioned, he explained that he was looking for them under the streetlight because the light was better. That is the only way I can even begin to explain the logic behind the following story.

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted a story about spying on American citizens. The government’s justification for the increased spying on Americans is that it is needed because of the terrorism threat. That almost makes sense–but there seems to be a gap between the purpose of the spying and its actual execution.

The article at Investor’s Business Daily reports:

Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.

We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel’s formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.

So it’s okay to violate the rights of average Americans, but not okay to violate the rights of Muslims? We really need to take a closer look at how this happened.

The article further reports:

One of the Muslim bombers made extremist outbursts during worship, yet because the mosque wasn’t monitored, red flags didn’t go off inside the FBI about his increasing radicalization before the attacks.

This is particularly disturbing in light of recent independent surveys of American mosques, which reveal some 80% of them preach violent jihad or distribute violent literature to worshippers.

The more I learn about the surveillance programs currently in place, the more I am convinced that these programs have more to do with politics than national security.

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Another Suit Against Planned Parenthood For Billing Fraud

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CBN News is reporting today that a former Planned Parenthood official in Los Angeles is claiming that the abortion provider over-charged the state and federal government by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The article reports:

Victor Gonzalez, former CFO for Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles, alleges that Planned Parenthood received fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements in excess of $200 million after illegally billing the federal program for oral contraceptives and contraceptive devices.

…Gonzalez’s accusations support the findings of Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal advocacy group, which has charged the abortion organization with abuse, waste, and potential fraud totaling over $100 million in tax funding.

In August 2012, CBN News reported on another Planned Parenthood fraud case in Texas.

We really do need to reconsider how our tax dollars are spent.Enhanced by Zemanta

A Whole New Meaning To Thanksgiving Turkey

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Breitbart.com reported yesterday that the Los Angeles’ labor unions have decided to hold a protest at Lost Angeles Airport on Wednesday, the biggest travel day of the year. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is leading the charge.

The article reports:

What exactly is SEIU protesting for? They say that an airport contract is breaking the city law on living wages – which, of course, is nonsense, since that would be prosecutable. They also say that the contractor has eliminated “affordable healthcare” for over 400 workers. Which is, again, bull. After all, can’t the SEIU just rely on Obamacare?

Sometimes I truly wonder what the SEIU actually wants.

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Remember Nakoula Basseley Nakoula ?

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Yesterday the Washington Times posted an article about Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Mr. Nakoula is supposedly responsible for the video the Obama Administration and the Obama Cabinet initially blamed on the attack on the Embassy Annex in Benghazi. Mr. Nakoula is still being held at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) without bond.

The article at the Washington Times concludes:

Mr. Nakoula’s next court date is on November 9, three days after the presidential election. In the meantime, while the Obama administration passes blame around over who dropped the ball with the attack in Benghazi, Mr. Nakoula remains locked up and muzzled in a Los Angeles detention center until after the ballots for president are counted on November 6. 

Under the Obama Administration, it seems as if terrorists’ civil rights are better protected than those of American citizens.

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Rest In Peace, Alex Karras

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The Detroit Free Press is reporting today that Alex Karras died today in Los Angeles.

The article describes Alex Karras in the weight room :

“He was 6-2, 260, and in the weight room, he never lifted weights,” Walker (longtime linebacker Wayne Walker) said. “Once a year, he’d come in, smoke a cigar, trim down to his shorts, get under the barbell and bench-press 300 pounds twice. He’d dress, and you’d never see him in the weight room again.”

The article further reports:

“He was a giant of a man with a big heart, a great sense of humor, and very grounded outlook on life,” actor Emmanuel Lewis, who played Karras’ adoptive son, Webster, told si.com. “He might have towered over you . . . but he had a knack of being able get down to your level without being small about it.”

Alex Karras will be missed. He was one of the true gentlemen in the game of football.

 

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What Has Happened To America?

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This is a picture of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula being led away from his house in California to be questioned by federal officials. Mr. Nakoula is said to be the person who created the anti-Islam film that is incorrectly being blamed for the current riots in the Middle East. This picture is from Power Line.

The picture is disturbing.

On Saturday, the Christian Science Monitor reported:

Just after midnight Saturday morning – his face and head covered – a man identified as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was taken from his home in Cerritos, Calif., by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies for what law enforcement officials described as a “voluntary interview.”

Do the police routinely come to anyone’s house in the middle of the night for a ‘voluntary interview’? To be fair, Mr. Nakoula was on probation for a crime involving the Internet and was not supposed to use the Internet. However, this does seem a bit like using an atomic bomb to swat a fly. We do have free speech in America, don’t we?