Horrible Situations Should Not Result In Bad Laws

The Democrats have been known to exploit the death of a child (or children) for political purposes, and what is currently happening in Ohio is the most recent example of that. A young man named Teddy was removed from public school by his mother to be home schooled and was later killed by his mother’s boyfriend. Now an Ohio Democrat is attempting to pass a law that would severely restrict home schooling.

The bill, Senate Bill 248 (SB 248), is nicknamed Teddy’s bill.

An article posted at a website called Media Trackers sheds a little light on what is going on–it lists the donors of Sen. Capri Cafaro‘s (D-Hubbard) campaign.

The article reports:

Sen. Cafaro is strongly supported by public employee unions, whose business model depends on government spending and especially on education spending. In 2012 alone, Cafaro’s campaign committee received:

SB 248 has not yet been assigned to committee. Both the Ohio Senate and Ohio House are controlled by Republicans.

This bill is a blatant example of money in politics used to encourage favorable legislation for the donators.

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Using Scare Tactics To Discourage Whistleblowers

I will admit that I have only followed current events for the last twenty years or so, but I can’t remember ever hearing anything like the story I am about to report.

Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that two ABC News reporters who entered the Peck Federal Building in Cincinnati were escorted through the building by an armed uniformed police officer with the Federal Protective Service. The Peck Building is a public building, it is also the home of the Internal Revenue Service office in Cincinnati.

The article at Breitbart reports:

At the [Cincinnati] IRS office on the fourth floor, a woman who answered the buzzer referred reporters to officials in Washington, though they were not returning very many calls. That staffer also said she was not allowed to speak to anyone – a line that was repeated by agency personnel during the week.

IRS headquarters in Washington denied that a no-talk rule was official policy because, after all, agency staffers still have a constitutional right to talk to whomever they want. …

Not so, said IRS folks in Ohio.

One of them, who asked not be named, told ABC News that security guards did remind employees of the official policy not to talk with the press – a warning cemented by the punch line “or risk losing our jobs.”

All we need is one honest, brave employee to come forward and explain exactly what happened. Unfortunately, that would be the Obama Administration’s worst nightmare and they will do everything they can to keep that from happening.

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Unfortunately This Is Not A Surprise To Anyone Who Has Been Paying Attention

The Associated Press is reporting today that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has apologized for targeting conservative groups during the 2012 election cycle to see if they were violating the rules of their non-profit status.

The article reports:

IRS agents singled out dozens of organizations for additional reviews because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their exemption applications, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for lists of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

I don’t like to accuse the Associated Press of bias, but the article makes a point of noting:

The agency — led at the time by a Bush administration appointee — blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.

The article reports that the excessive scrutiny on groups with the words ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their name began with ‘low-level’ employees in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. Really? Then what do you suppose motivated them?

The article further reports:

Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale,” the IRS said in a statement. “We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system.”

“I don’t think there’s any question we were unfairly targeted,” said Tom Zawistowski, who until recently was president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, an alliance of tea party groups in the state.

Zawistowski’s group was among many conservative organizations that battled the IRS over what they saw as discriminatory treatment. The group first applied for nonprofit status in June 2009, and it was finally granted on Dec. 7, 2012, he said — one month after Election Day.

This entire story is further proof that Chicago-style politics has truly come to Washington.

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I Don’t Believe This, But It Will Make The Discussion More Interesting

CNS News is reporting that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has predicted that federal revenues for 2013 will exceed $2.7 trillion in 2013, slightly higher than the $2.6 trillion the government collected in 2007, when the last recession officially began.

The article reports:

Government revenues had fallen by nearly $500 billion during the recession to $2.1 trillion in 2009, contributing to the $1.5 trillion deficit that year. However, federal revenues have been recovering since the recession ended in June 2009, and the CBO now projects that they will slightly eclipse their pre-recession peak.

In fact, the $2.7 trillion in revenue will be the most money the federal government has collected in history.

Obviously, if government revenue is the highest it has ever been in history, why do we have to increase taxes?

The article reports:

Democrats say we should replace the president’s ‘sequester’ with revenue increases, or delay it.  Republicans say we should replace [it] with responsible reforms that will help put us on a path to balance the budget in 10 years,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Frankly, I would love to see federal revenues increase, but I am not convinced they will. Unemployment is still high, and the number of people working part-time who want to work full-time is at an all time high. Much of the revenue the government gets comes from personal income taxes, and if the unemployment situation does not change, I don’t think the revenues will change significantly. The CBO does its calculations based on the numbers it is given. It would be interesting to know where they got the numbers that convinced them 2013 was going to be a banner year for tax revenue.

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What Voter Fraud ?

I will repeat this for the sake of anyone who has not been reading this blog for a while–I don’t think President Obama was reelected because of voter fraud. However, I do think that voter fraud is a problem in this country and we need to do a better job of keeping our elections honest.

The Corner at National Review posted a story today about voter fraud in Ohio. It seems that one of the poll workers Hamilton County, Ohio, may have voted six times. That seems a little excessive to me.

The article reports:

Three other absentee ballots in the names of different people were submitted to the Board of Elections from Richardson’s address on Nov. 1. Officials say the handwriting on those ballots is similar and that they were all received together, on the same day that Richardson’s absentee ballot arrived at the office. Richardson maintains that some of the other voters live at her house.

Attempts by Fox News to reach Richardson were unsuccessful, but she claimed to the local station that the votes were “absolutely legal votes.”

It gets better. The article concludes:

The local news report below includes an interview with Richardson, who is set to appear before Ohio’s Hamilton County Board of Elections on Friday, as well as footage from the testimony of five other Ohio voters accused of voting, or attempting to vote, twice. One individual revealed she was unaware that it was illegal to vote twice, while several reported confusion caused by absentee ballots. 

The article includes a video:


Please watch the video. It is amazing. It is scary to think these people vote at all–they don’t seem to know how voting works.Enhanced by Zemanta

The Economy Is Shrinking–Not Growing

The Washington Free Beacon reported today that in the fourth quarter of 2012, the U. S. Gross Domestic Product fell .1 percent. This is the first decline in three years.

The article reports:

“The number isn’t as bad as it looks,” said Paul Edelstein, director of financial economics at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts, whose team projected a 0.3 percent gain, the lowest in the Bloomberg survey. “This really was a story about a payback in national defense spending. Consumer spending growth picked up, fixed investment was fairly strong.” […]

Government outlays dropped at a 6.6 percent annual pace from October through December, subtracting 1.3 percentage points from GDP. The decrease was led by a 22.2 percent fall in defense that was the biggest since 1972, following the Vietnam War.

Meanwhile, everyone in Washington is blaming everyone else.

The Hill reported today:

Carney said economic observers were “rightly appalled” by the threat of sequestration or default to drive a debt deal, and charged that Republicans were harming the economy to the benefit of the wealthiest Americans.

“It can’t be we’ll let sequester kick in because we insist tax loopholes remain in place for corporate jet-owners,” Carney said.

Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), pointed the finger of blame for the still-looming sequester back at the White House

“These arbitrary, automatic cuts were a creation and demand of the White House in 2011,” said Buck. “Twice the House has passed legislation to replace them with common sense cuts and reforms. If there was any uncertainty late last year about the sequester, it was because the Democratic-controlled Senate, per usual, never lifted a finger to pass a plan to replace it.”

Let’s back up a minute. The Senate has been operating on continuing resolutions since 2009 because they have failed to pass a budget. These resolutions allow them to keep the spending at the 2009 levels. We are going into debt at the rate of more than $1 trillion dollars a year because of those continuing resolutions. Has anyone considered the impact of runaway spending on the financial health of the nation? Has anyone considered the fact that businesses are holding their breath waiting to see what the impact of Obamacare will be? Has anyone considered that Americans knew at the end of last year that their paychecks would be smaller after January 1st?

We are now more than four years into bad fiscal policy. At some point that fact will be recognized (even in Washington). The answer, unfortunately, will not come until the 2014 elections. At that point Americans will have to decide whether to continue on our present path or try something different. I strongly suggest we try something different–controlling spending and passing a budget would be a great start.

 

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What The News Said And What Actually Happened

Hot Air posted an article yesterday about some recent news stories about shootings at gun shows. The contrast between the headline and the actual facts is almost comical.

The article reports:

The headlines speak volumes without even digging into the nasty messages underneath. 5 People Shot at 3 Different Gun Shows on Gun Appreciation Day. Holy cow! Five people were gunned down? That’s awful! I’m sure you wouldn’t go and get all snarky about shooting victims though, would you?

Now let’s look at what actually happened. In an incident at a North Carolina gun show. The article reports:

A man identified as Gary Lynn Wilson, 36, of Wilmington, brought the 12-gauge shotgun to the show at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds and was attempting to remove it from its case when the weapon went off shortly after 1 p.m., police said.

Linwood Hester, 50, of Durham, was struck in the left hand by birdshot, according to Joel Keith, police chief with the state Department of Agriculture. The birdshot also struck a woman identified as Janet Hoover, 54, of Benson, and Jake Alderman, a retired sheriff’s deputy from Wake Forest who was working at the event.

The article also reports:

The second incident, in Indianapolis, concerned a guy who accidentally shot himself with his new gun after leaving the gun show. The final one was in the Buckeye state.

And in Ohio, a gun dealer in Medina was checking out a semi-automatic handgun he had bought when he accidentally pulled the trigger, injuring his friend, police said. The gun’s magazine had been removed from the firearm, but one round remained in the chamber, police said.

Admittedly, some of the people involved in these incidents were not acting responsibly, but there was no violent or criminal intent. The answer to these incidents would be to encourage all gun owners to follow safety procedures when participating in gun shows–not seeking laws that violate the U. S. Constitution to advance a political agenda.

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Something To Make This Weekend A Little Better

This is not a new story, but it is something that I just came across. It gives me hope for the future.

On October 5, 2012, the Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) reported on the crowning of the Homecoming Queen at Bishop Hartley High School, a Roman Catholic school on the East Side of town. Megan Ryan was elected Homecoming Queen by her classmates. Megan has Down syndrome.

The article reports:

Her fellow seniors chose their outgoing, ever-smiling classmate from among 10 nominees (with Jacob Smith selected king ).

“I’m so thrilled for her,” said senior Sam Burgess, a member of the court. “She just has a great personality. She’s like a sister to me.”

Aside from the fact that this is a heartwarming story, there is another aspect to this that encourages me. In November 2009 ABC News reported:

“An estimated 92 percent of all women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to terminate their pregnancies, according to research reviewed by Dr. Brian Skotko, a pediatric geneticist at Children’s Hospital Boston.

The students at Bishop Hartley High School saw Megan as a person having value. Although I understand that raising a child with Down syndrome is extremely challenging, that does not negate the fact that the child is a human being and has value because he or she is a human being. It gives me hope that these students were able to see Megan as a person who was worthy of the honor of Homecoming Queen.

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The Unmentioned Voter Bloc

Yesterday Dan Henninger at the Wall Street Journal posted an article about an often overlooked voting bloc–the evangelical vote.

The article reports:

When Mitt Romney‘s 2012 candidacy was gaining traction in the primaries, the conventional wisdom instantly conveyed that the evangelical vote, skeptical of Mormonism, would sink him.

What if in Ohio next week the opposite is true? There and in other swing states—Wisconsin, Iowa, North Carolina, Florida—the evangelical vote is flying beneath the media’s radar. It’s a lot of voters not to notice. In the 2008 presidential vote, they were 30% of the vote in Ohio, 31% in Iowa and 26% in Wisconsin.

Back in April, the policy director of the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Land, predicted that evangelicals in time would coalesce behind Mitt Romney. Yesterday he endorsed Mr. Romney, the first time he has done so for any presidential candidate.

It is also interesting that the Reverend Billy Graham has endorsed Governor Romney and is actively supporting him.

As someone who shares the values of the evangelicals, I cannot understand how anyone who considers themselves an evangelical could vote for Barack Obama. President Obama has made his stand on life issues abundantly clear–he supports federally funded abortion, partial birth abortion, and forcing religious organizations to violate their consciences in order to fund his anti-life platform.

It will be interesting to see if the evangelical voters will bring their values into the voting booth.

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About Those Voting Machines

On October 24, I posted an article about voting machines in North Carolina that were malfunctioning (rightwinggranny.com). Well, it seems that North Carolina is not the only place where voting machines have a mind of their own.

The Marion Star is reporting today that a voting machine in Marion, Ohio, showed a vote for President Obama when the voter voted for Governor Romney.

The article reports:

Joan Stevens was one of several early voters at the polls on Monday. But when Stevens tried to cast her ballot for president, she noticed a problem.

Upon selecting “Mitt Romney” on the electronic touch screen, Barack Obama’s name lit up.

It took Stevens three tries before her selection was accurately recorded.

So if you are not paying attention, it would be very easy for your vote to be recorded incorrectly. Please vote carefully–regardless of how you vote.

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A New Low In Media Reporting

The Blaze posted two videos on Thursday of a Romney-Ryan rally in Ohio. The first video was played by MSNBC host Martin Bashir to illustrate his point that Paul Ryan was overshadowing Mitt Romney in the presidential campaign. A similar video had been played on “Morning Joe” the day before. I am not posting that video, if you would like to see it, follow the link to “The Blaze” above.

The unedited (untampered with) clip is at the bottom of the article at “The Blaze.” Here it is:

The article also provides an eyewitness account of the events. The eyewitness account and the unedited video clearly show that the crowd was not shouting “Ryan”–they were shouting “Romney,” and Mitt Romney encouraged them to change the shout to “Romney-Ryan.”  It is very discouraging to see videotape edited to fit the picture the mainstream media is trying to paint of this presidential campaign. This altered video clearly shows the reason we need the Internet as an alternative news source.

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Paid Protesters

The video that went viral yesterday was the Obama Phone video, but there was another story at the Romney rally in Bedford, Ohio on Wednesday.

The Daily Caller posted a story yesterday reporting:

The amateur filmmaker who shot the footage (Obama Phone video)  also has released video revealing that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) paid protestors during a recent rally for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney .

I have shared this story before, but two years ago, when working on a campaign in Massachusetts, supporters of the Republican candidate were faced with paid protesters at a debate. There was a definite attempt by the union thugs to stir up an incident that would be reported by the press. No incident occurred, as most of the people attending the debate were mature enough to ignore the provocations. It was a lesson to me on how paid union protesters operate.

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Behind The Numbers In The Ohio Poll

Ohio is a swing state that Governor Romney needs to win in order to defeat President Obama in November. A group called Public Policy Polling predicts a win by President Obama in Ohio by 5 points, but when you look closely at the poll, the numbers don’t add up.

This article is based on two sources–a post at Hot Air by Ed Morrissey and a post at DaTechGuyBlog by Pete DaTechGuy.

Pete reminds us that women are more likely to vote for President Obama. The poll sampled 54% women and 46% men. The poll also sampled 41% Democrats, 37% Republicans, and 22% Independents. Ed Morrissey points out that the 37% Republicans matches the Republican 2010 turnout, but that the Democrat turnout in the 2010 midterm election was 36%–not 41%.

Pete also posted the following numbers:

https://www.rightwinggranny.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/crosstab-4-results.png

Pete describes the problem with these numbers:

Now that’s kind of odd isn’t it? this crosstab suggest that you have a 42% of the people in the poll self identifying themselves as conservative in a poll that is 37% Republican, yet only 28% call themselves liberal? Are we to believe that ALL of republicans are Conservatives with some spill over to the middle or is it more likely that our liberal friends, like their fellows in the media don’t see their own biases and believe themselves moderate?

The bottom line here is simple. Anyone can lie with statistics (or polls). All you have to do is carefully choose the people you poll. The only poll that really matters is the one on election day when voters vote. Until then, we need to ignore a lot of what the media tells us is true. The important thing is that everyone get out and vote ONCE on election day. I believe that Governor Romney will win an honest election.

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Another Side Of The Story

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has done everything it can to prevent voter identification laws from being put into effect. A recent case in Virginia (rightwinggranny.com) regarding registration of pets, children and dead people showed the need for such laws. However, the DOJ has claimed that voter identification laws will suppress the vote and prevent people from voting. I agree that people who are entitled to vote should not hindered in the process, but evidently the people opposing voter id laws are not consistent in their views.

Breitbart.com posted an article today about an effort by Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party to limit the ability of military personnel to vote in Ohio.

The article reports:

Currently, Ohio allows the public to vote early in-person up until the Friday before the election. Members of the military are given three extra days to do so. While the Democrats may see this as “arbitrary” and having “no discernible rational basis,” I think it is entirely reasonable given the demands on servicemen and women’s time and their obligations to their sworn duty.

The Democrats are attempting to strike down the part of the law that gives the military extra days to vote.

In the past there have been incidents where the military were mailed their absentee ballots too late to return them in a timely fashion. In 2009 Congress enacted the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act to help resolve some of the problems. Hopefully, the Department of Justice cares as much about the votes of the military as it does about the votes of people who may not have identification.

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Do Politics Influence Where People Choose To Live ?

Map of USA showing states with no state income...

Image via Wikipedia

Yahoo Finance posted an article yesterday entitled, “States Where No One Wants To Buy A New Home.” Since I live in one of the states on the list (Massachusetts is listed as number 7 of 10), I read the article.

The map above shows all the states with no state income tax in red and the states that tax only interest and dividend income in yellow. I am not sure how much of a factor this is in the number of housing starts. It is interesting, though, that none of the states with no state income tax are on the list of states with the lowest number of housing starts.

The article reports:

Surprisingly, our list of states where few permits have been issued recently is different from the typical list of the worst housing markets. California, Nevada and Florida are always on those lists because homes are vacant and home values continue to drop. But the three are not on this list. It may be that prices have dropped so low in these markets that home inventory has begun to move, even if only tentatively. Instead, markets where housing permits are very small in relation to total homes are markets in which builders have abandoned any hope of near-term sales.

In case all you really wanted to do was see the list, here it is:

  1. Rhode Island
  2. West Virginia
  3. Illinois
  4. Michigan
  5. Connecticut
  6. Ohio
  7. Massachusetts
  8. New York
  9. Maine
  10. Pennsylvania

What in the world do these states have in common? I suspect there are a lot of reasons for the number of building permits to decrease in these states. Michigan for instance has lost a lot of businesses due to the tax policies of recent state administrations. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island all have state income taxes and business environments that do not necessarily encourage businesses to migrate there. New York is a very expensive place to live, although I believe the current governor is trying to ease the burden on the state’s taxpayers. It is interesting to me that these are all states in the northern areas of the country. Could it be that as the baby boomers age, they are simply looking for warmer places to live?

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