My Blog

Category: Politics

  • Over $60,000 Spent Per Household in Poverty

    “According to the Census’s American Community Survey, the number of households with incomes below the poverty line in 2011 was 16,807,795,” the Senate Budget Committee notes. “If you divide total federal and state spending by the number of households with incomes below the poverty line, the average spending per household in poverty was $61,194 in 2011.”

    via The Weekly Standard.

    Yes, I know… it’s The Weekly Standard.  It’s biased.  But facts are facts.  It’s just math.  Someone crunch the numbers and prove this wrong.  One should note that the article points out that welfare spending includes money such as Pell Grants which are given to people in households above the poverty line.  So it’s honest that way.

    But it’s just plain staggering to think about.  Where does all this money go?  Certainly a lot of bureaucrats pushing paper is part of the number.  But direct payments to the “poor” much be significant.  Now, I’m not suggesting that it’s fun to be poor… far from.  But we need to acknowledge that America has the richest poor people in the world.

    The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau as taken from various government reports:

    • 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
    • 92 percent of poor households have a microwave.
    • Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.
    • Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV.
    • Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and 70 percent have a VCR.
    • Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers.
    • More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.
    • 43 percent have Internet access.
    • One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.
    • One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo.

    via Heritage Foundation.
     

    In America the poor receive food, shelter, medical care, even a cell phone.  The reality is a far cry from the perception many on the left would like you to believe whereby tens-of-thousands of starving children are dying in dirty streets because no one would give them a morsel of bread.  That’s just simply not the case.

  • TSA PreCheck System Flawed – No One Surprised

    “Using a website I decoded my boarding pass for my upcoming trip.

    “It’s all there PNR [passenger name record], seat assignment, flight number, name, etc. But what is interesting is the bolded three on the end. This is the TSA PreCheck information. The number means the number of beeps. 1 beep no PreCheck, 3 beeps yes PreCheck.”

    The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) did not respond to a BBC request for a statement, but has previously said: “TSA does not comment on specifics of the screening process, which contain measures both seen and unseen. In addition, TSA incorporates random and unpredictable security measures throughout the travelling process.”

    via BBC News.

    As usual the MSM is silent on the farce that is the TSA.

    It’s amazing what a complete and udder failure the TSA has become.  From the millimeter machines that pounded you with radiation and made pictures of your naughty bits to the number of TSA employees who have been busted for everything from child porn to stealing laptops it seems that TSA is the symbol for irresponsible government run amok.

    Perhaps the greater failure is that the Obama admin has done nothing to correct the issue.

    TSA provides nothing but the illusion of security by harassing and abusing law abiding citizens.  It’s a national embarrassment.

  • More Dem on GOP Violence in WI

    A story on the Daily Caller, a national conservative website, says Kyle Wood, a full-time volunteer for Lee, reported that he answered his door Wednesday morning and a man wrapped a ligature around his neck, slammed his head into the doorway, smashed his face into a mirror and kidney-punched him.

    via Madison.com.

    I wrote a little about this here.

    No mention of either of these stories in the MSM.

     

  • CPD Brass Wasting Money Trying to Track Gunshots

    The Police Department began using gunshot detection technology early last month in two 1.5-square-mile areas to try to better pinpoint the location of gunshots, Superintendent Garry McCarthy disclosed Thursday. The sensors sometimes give officers information before 911 calls are made, he said.

    In the past decade, the city twice installed the devices but ultimately removed them because of their high price tags and ineffectiveness. Since then the technology has improved “dramatically,” McCarthy said.

    “What we can do with this is overwhelming right now,” McCarthy said at a news conference. “It’s gotten a lot better, and obviously as it’s out there longer, it’s a lot cheaper also.”

    The one-year contract for the ShotSpotter system costs about $200,000 — money that will come from drug forfeitures and other property seized by police, authorities said.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    So it didn’t work before and was too expensive.  Boy, that’s not what we were told last time.

    Given the success of the pilot program, in September 2003, Mayor Daley announced that a new phase of PODs would be deployed throughout the City. Subsequently, the number of PODs increased from 30 to 80 by December 2003. Some of the new second generation PODs were also equipped with technology to detect gunfire. Using wireless technology, these units transmitted gunshot alerts, as well as the usual video images, directly to the City’s Emergency Management and Communications Center, thereby providing crucial intelligence on criminal incidents involving guns. Several of the 30 existing PODs were also upgraded with the same technology during that time period.
    — CPD Website, dated June 15, 2003

    and

    Chicago police plan to add 50 new remote-controlled cameras in city … The new cameras will be equipped with gunshot detectors….
    — Herald & Review, dated April 7, 2004

    and

    Chicago police have installed 30 surveillance units in high-crime locales. The system uses four microphones to zero in on firearm discharges.
    — USA Today, dated June 6, 2005

    The USA Today article ends with:

    Adding SENTRI to an existing surveillance camera is not cheap, however. The system costs between $4,000 and $10,000 per unit. In Chicago, money forfeited by criminals is used to pay for both it and the accompanying cameras.

    As a result, Police Superintendent Phil Cline told a recent U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, “the drug dealers are actually paying to surveil themselves.”

    I guess everything old is new again.

     

  • Pension’s Rate of Return Plummets to 0.76%

    This sounds like a problem:

    The pension fund for most public school teachers in Illinois generated just 0.76 percent in fiscal 2012, a big drop from the 23.6 percent rate of return in the previous fiscal year, the Teachers’ Retirement System reported on Thursday.  …

    It is the long-term results that matter and the system’s 20-year investment return at the end of June was 7.73 percent.”  …

    Last month, the pension fund for teachers in all Illinois school districts with the exception of the Chicago Public Schools, lowered its long-term assumed investment rate of return to 8 percent from 8.5 percent.The move will depress TRS’ funded ratio to 42.5 percent and increase Illinois’ fiscal 2014 payment to the fund to $3.36 billion instead of $3.07 billion under the previous return rate.

    via Crain’s Chicago Business.

    Indeed a problem.  Consider …

    A drop in the assumed rate of return from 8.5% to 8.0% meant that the state (that’s you and me, a/k/a the taxpayers) owed an extra $300,000,000.  Hummm….

    TRS’s board members, appointed by The Machine, like to quote the 20-year ROR because it’s a respectable 7.73%.  That’s true.  But as I wrote about this before, the 10-year ROR is a pathetic 5.7%.

    The fact remains that TRS is in some real trouble.  Everyone knows it.  And the longer we keep our head in the sand the more painful it’s going to be to fix.

  • “Obama, Romney – Same Police State”

    Johnson’s first point was that the US political system is in desperate need of transparency.  Whether Obama or Romney is elected next month, he told the audience, we will still have “a heightened police state in the US.”  And Obama and Romney are guaranteed to continue American military interventions abroad, he added.

    via RT.

    Indeed.  Obama and Romney are more alike than different when you consider the other ideas being bantered about.  Such as:

    However, [Johnson] saw taxing marijuana as one alternative to outlawing it. “I have drank alcohol,” he said, “and I have smoked marijuana. … I can tell you that in no category is marijuana more dangerous than alcohol – yet we are arresting 1.8 million people a year on drug-related crimes.” He claimed that fully half of the US court and prison budget every year goes to drug-related offenses, and asked, rhetorically, “to what end?”

    I would love a presidential candidate to come forward and tell the American people directly that the war on drugs has been an epic failure.

    Johnson repeated throughout the debate that thanks to American wars abroad, the US has unnecessarily made millions of enemies around the world.  The use of the military, he said, is to defend the country, not invade other nations.

    I would love a presidential candidate to come forward and tell the American people directly that our foreign policy of intervening in everyone else’s affairs has been an epic failure.

    “The biggest threat to our national security is that we’re bankrupt,” he told the audience….

    I would love a presidential candidate to come forward and tell the American people directly that our debt is a national security issue.

    …

    Kudos to Gary Johnson.  Such a shame that the GOP and Dem and MSM just ignore you.

  • Alderman Ervin’s Maywood ‘Drug House’

    For Ald. Jason Ervin, who represents a large swath of Chicago’s troubled West Side, drug activity in the area hits particularly close to home.

    That’s because until recently, Ervin owned what police and others portray as a “drug house” in nearby Maywood.

    During the decade or so that Ervin owned the three-flat at 1600 W. Madison in the Near West suburb, police were called to the property or the immediate vicinity roughly 150 times, often for drug-related incidents, but also for gunshots, assaults, trespassing and thefts, among other matters, according to records from the Village of Maywood.via Chicago Sun-Times.

    Those looking for another reason to not vote for Ald. Self Serving Jason Ervin.

    Welcome to The Machine.  The Machine like Mr. Ervin because he will do whatever they tell him to do.  He could never find a job in the private sector making $120,000 per year like he makes as Alderman.  So he will do absolutely anything to keep his job.

    We need to cleanse people like this from the system.

  • IL Finances Heading to Social Unrest

    “I think it’s going to reach a point where there’s either social disorder or bankruptcy before people will act,” he said.

    via Crain’s Chicago Business.

    Ya, that sounds about right.

    But let’s back-up a little.  This is a quote from a story about how back the finances are in Illinois.

    A Blue Ribbon Panel put together a report which was released this morning.  It’s damning in the extreme.  The whole report can be found here.

    I’ll write more about this later… I have to catch a plane.

  • Islamist Radicals Visited White House

    A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials.

    via The Investigative Project on Terrorism.

    This is a problem.

    A real mo fo problem.

    No word yet from the Ministry of Truth.

     

  • Democrat Voter Fraud in Florida & a Beating in WI

    [Republican] Voters are getting letters that look like they are from local elections offices, questioning their citizenship. But Local 6 has learned the letters are fake, and they are going out across Central Florida and other parts of the state.

    Officials said the voters who have received the letters thus far are white, registered Republicans who consistently vote in elections.

    “This is a major concern,” said Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Mike Ertel, who received a letter from a voter mailed from Seattle with no return address. “You should not expect a letter from your elections office saying, ‘You’re not registered to vote, please don’t go to the polls.’  That’s ridiculous.”

    The supervisor of elections in Collier County said some residents there have also received hoax letters.

    Inside the letter is the resident’s supervisor of election’s name, the resident’s name and address, and a warning that doubts the voter’s citizenship, saying the resident is not eligible to vote unless a letter is returned in an enclosed form within 15 days.

    via WKMG Orlando.

    This surprises no one.

    Think about this for just one second.  The bogus letters are sent to “white, registered Republicans who consistently vote in elections.”  Who has access to that information?  Sure, it’s available at the local board of elections but not easy to pull together into a mail-merge.  This is a sophisticated effort by someone who has a copy of the electronic voter database.  That’s not easy to come by.

    Very creepy.  But this (I guess) is the lengths some people will go to to win an election.  And if the fraud doesn’t work, they just beat some people up and put them in the hospital.  People in the hospital don’t vote right?

    State Senator Neal Kedzie says his son was attacked while trying to stop someone from stealing his Romney/Ryan yard sign.

    Whitewater Police tell NBC15 News this is an active investigation.

    Here is the statement released by Senator Neal Kedzie:

    Early on Friday morning, October 19th, my son Sean was awakened by noises outside his residence in Whitewater. As he went to see what the commotion was about, he noticed an individual removing a Romney/Ryan yard sign from his property. He yelled to the person that they were taking something not theirs and to return it immediately.

    The individual returned the sign, however, a second person confronted and attacked Sean without warning.

    Sean was wrestled to the ground by both persons, held down by a constricting chokehold, and struck repeatedly about the face and head.

    He nearly passed out from the chokehold and suffered contusions to his face and eyes.

    Fortunately, an alert neighbor heard the commotion, scared the individuals away, and called the police.

    My wife and I were awakened by a telephone call from Sean’s roommate that Sean had been taken by ambulance to Fort Atkinson Memorial Hospital.

    via NBC 15, Madison WI

    They say if you resort to violence
    then you’ve already lost.
    —  Sean Connery as Capt. John Connor, Rising Sun

    Given the continued threats of violence should Obama not win it’s safe to say our fair nation is losing its soul.  The media has given a voice to those believe they can govern through raw power and fear.

    Something is very very wrong here.  A lack of proper education, poor social values, a biased and weak willed media system, and a general lack of civility can sink the country.  We’re very very close.

    Scary times.