Live Free, Live Long, and Win Mass GOP!

Following Congressman Edward Markey’s win to replace John Kerry in the United States Senate, CNN reported “No shocker this time”. The real shock will always be that an ice cream man then (and a squish to this day) can represent the state where “The Shot Heard Round the World” was fired.



Three Republicans did step up to run, yet why did winning Republican Gabriel Gomez fail to “Re-Brown” the Bay state as state senator Scott Brown (R-Wrentham) had done three years prior? In 2010, Brown was running against Obama, not just Martha Coakley. Massachusetts already had Romneycare, and Obamacare was unpopular with Bay State voters (and it sounds as if Romneycare-turned-Patrickcare is hurting people’s health care all the more). Even Congressman (I mean, Senator, Yikes!) Edward Markey detested the medical device tax in Obamacare (yet he voted for it, even though he was against it). Brown was not just good on paper or in photo. He was good in person, in purpose, and on policy. He knew people. He cared about the issues, and he was real.



It’s too bad that Brown chose to run against his own party, himself, and Liz Warren in 2012. Still, the National Party platform needs some revising, as it hurts Northeastern candidates somewhat. The Mass GOP did the right thing by rejecting some of the social conservative elements of the National GOP platform. There is nothing immoral about recognizing abortion in some cases – rape, incest, life of the mother. Governor Christie in New Jersey honors those exceptions, as did Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan and his running mate Mitt Romney. Even state senator and failed Congressional candidate Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield), a pro-choice Republican, rebuffed ABC’s John Carl when the reporter asked Tisei if he was “pro-abortion”. He disagreed: “It’s her choice.” Admirably, US Senate candidate Gomez was pro-life, but a man who solicited “Mister Governor” Deval Patrick for an interim Senate seat as an early Obama supporter soured many voters (and me).



The June 25 voter turnout was low. Massachusetts voters are burned out, but they should get burned up with Beacon Hill and Washington, which spends welfare dollars on terrorists and dishes on amnesty, betraying their daily amnesia for the plight and flight of Bay State residents. Moreover, Democrats spent $11 million, and Bill Clinton and Obama stumped for Markey, who won by only ten points in three-to-one Democratic Massachusetts. 2014 should prove interesting indeed, as Democrats have raised taxes on computer software and gas, and Patrick rejected implementing key welfare reforms. He’s leaving office (Hallelujah!), and Republican Scott Brown, who remains very popular, can take the corner office.



Republicans can win on some many issues in Massachusetts, anyway. What can they do to stem the Azure tide of Democrat blue in their state? MassLive.com reported on the frank discussions going back and forth among Republican operatives in Massachusetts following their second US Senate seat loss in a year. Three clear assessments stood out, and all of them are correct.



There are the demographics. An 11% Republican registration is disheartening. How to bring up registration, then?



Here comes the second issue: organization.



Everyone wants to be a Congressman, US Senator, or Governor. What about school board member, city councilman, or state legislator? These positions are key stepping stones to any political career, and the local, grassroots are just as important as statewide campaigns. When town and country Republicans make their mark, voters see that the real hope and change belongs with Republicans: fiscally sound, morally responsible, fully accountable and available.



In my state, there is no greater contrast in Democratic and Republican management than Bell vs. Downey, CA. Bell is all an all Democrat run city, a months-long front-page laughing-stock because of corrupt city officials who took in six-figure salaries while taxing impoverished, working-class community. Downey is an all Republican city, with no debt or structural issues keeping people down, prosperous and safe. With local Republicans in charge, everyone wins. Local Republicans become statewide winners every time.



Then there’s the messaging problem. Republican US Senate candidate Michael Sullivan could not have phrased in better about Gabriel Gomez: “Obama Republican.” If you are liberal, then be liberal. If you are a Republican, then you cannot support Obama. That’s just schizophrenia! Republicans need to be consistent, limited government advocates all the way.



In addition, Libertarian party candidates have taken away some wins from some Mass Republicans. Time to take their ideas. Libertarianism is the core of conservativism, Ronald Reagan declared. US Senator Edward Brooke counseled that every party has to have a head and a heart. “Live Free and Live Long” should be the new mantra for the Massachusetts GOP, who can bring back the heart of the Republican Party by defederalizing marriage (then get the government out of it altogether), end the draconian war on drug laws, and re-enfranchise law-abiding, tax-paying felons. Enacting welfare-to-work programs would ensure an orderly transition from dependence to prosperity, too.



A more Libertarian Republican brand can resolve the registration, organization, and messaging issues for Massachusetts Republicans, whose new mantra should be: Live Free, Live Long, and Win, Mass GOP!

Obama and Langevin: Regressive, not Progressive

Congressman James Langevin (D-Warick) is a big fan of President Barack Obama and his progressive predecessor President Woodrow Wilson. As a proud sponsee of the Rhode Island Progressive Democrats, Langevin prizes any politician who espouses the Progressive doctrines of governance. According to Bob Plain of RI Future, Progressivism is on the rise in Rhode Island or at least as remain in high tide, so Langevin must be enabling the progress of the people's, right?

 

What is progressivism, anyway, and why should anyone care?

The Rhode Island Chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America offered

the following:

　

We remind Democrats who’ve lost their way that our party is the party that represents the people, not the corporate special interests and the 1%.

OK. Wikipedia offers the following definition:

Progressivism is a general political philosophy based on the idea of progress. . .

Progress is nice, right? The site continues:

American progressives tend to advocate

progressive taxation and oppose what they describe as the growing and negative influence of large corporations. . . they support organized labor and trade unions, they usually wish to introduce a living wage, and they often support the creation of a universal health care system.

Do these "progressive policies" promote progress?

Progressive taxation means that the more money you make, the more money you pay to the government. Why should anyone be punished for making more money, and why should the government get the money? In Rhode Island, the GA spends taxpayer dollars on bad loans, bad leaders, and bad ideas which scare away workers and investors. As for the federal government, just consider the abuses inflicted by the IRS on political and religious groups and the massive bailouts of General Motors and Wall Street. One wonders how President Obama or Rep. Langevin can claim to be Progressive, at least when regarding corporations. (By the way, both

Obama and Langevin have received massive donations from corporate-union interests. How is this progressive?)

About trade unions, their number includes public sector unions, the very political force which is crippling reform and growth in states like Rhode Island and California. Despite their advocacy for workers, progressive policies have created regressive consequences for the same workers. Central Falls, Rhode Island declared bankruptcy and abandoned public safety retirees, who had relied on their collective bargaining unit (and an understood expectation of full faith and credit) in their city. What did they get? Severed pensions and doubtful retirement. How is this progress? (By the way, regarding debt and payback, campaign donation records indicated that Rep. Langevin was still paying off campaign debt from previous races. Yikes!)

 

Even though it sounds good, what does a living wage mean? Often, protestors (unions) who demand a living wage believe that if they pressure private industries or coerce legislators to raise the minimum wage, then workers will have more money. Although their paychecks will register higher numbers, their overall wealth will never increase. Minimum wage laws hurts entry-level workers, minorities, and other marginalized groups (like young people) because businesses have to shore up the costs of higher wages. Producers have to raise the price of goods or lay off workers, who then receive no wage at all.

How is this progress?

About universal health care, this phrase would make George Orwell weep because of its inherent contradictions and propaganda-like sway. Sounds nice to provide for everyone's health care, right? The government should be able to take money from taxpayers and divvy out the funds so that everyone has equal access right? Wrong. Canada's single-payer system sucks. Great Britain cannot deal with health care costs relating to its National Health Service. President Obama's attempt toward universal health care, Obamacare, is blowing up in his face as we speak (Langevin voted in favor of this regressive, 2,500 page law, of course). Rhode Islanders will remain uninsured following the implementation of health insurance exchanges. Premiums are rising, access is falling, and everyone (including unions!) will be hit with higher, or rather "progressive" taxes because of this law.

 

Rep. Langevin, the Progressive Democratic Congressman of Rhode Island, has in reality and based on record advocated and advanced regressive policies in a state which features the long-standing results of Progressive politics. More people are leaving Rhode Island than entering, and there is only billionaire in the entire state. Federal legislators spend more time debating climate change rather than limiting government to improve the economic climate. State legislators debate gay marriage instead of the not-so-gay fiscal crises crippling the state. Democratic city leaders shift the blame to businesses who do not pay "their fair share" or back to the General Assembly.

Progress?

Another tenet of Progressivism posits the perfectibility of man through government power. After five years of Obama, twelve years of Langevin, and eighty years of the anti-Democratic hypermajority in Providence, Rhode Island has regressed into last least, and lowest on any scale of economic viability, and even public sector workers who faithfully served their communities and paid into their retirement are not receiving their proper reimbursements.

For real progress, Rhode Island voters must reject "regressive progressive" Congressman James Langevin in 2014.

Rep. Langevin (D-Rhode Island) Quotes (Racist, Statist) Woodrow Wilson

Q: Which author do you most often reference?

A: I’m fond of Woodrow Wilson quotes.—Congressman James Langevin (The Hill)

Woodrow Wilson is also Langevin’s publicly professed Idol -- Michael Riley (golocalprov.com)

Congressman James Langevin (D-2, Rhode Island) has represented the Ocean State for twelve years. A committed progressive in a liberal state, his views on abortion have wavered, yet he never waives an opportunity to expand state power to “help people.” Langevin also has a peculiar penchant for the quotes of President Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson was the first Progressive President in the White House. The doctrines of Progressivism in the early 20^th Century stressed the mutability of human nature, the perfectibility of mankind through the proper use and expansion of the state. Following the teachings of German philosopher Georg Friedreich Hegel, Wilson and his fellow Progressives were convinced that a concentrated oligarchy of academic elites functioning as benevolent bureaucrats would right the wrongs of a fallen world and make the United States a strong nation.

Inevitably, their doctrines resisted the limited government essentials of the United States Constitution, as the Framers wisely recognized that since men are not angels, they should have as little power as possible, or face as many frustrations imaginable in their acts of governance. And Woodrow Wilson was no angel. A rabid racist, both anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic, Wilson purged the Executive Mansion of black people. He rigidly enforced segregation during his administration. Wilson pursued wars abroad against the same German state which he sought to emulate in the United States. While Americans were fighting Germans in Europe, German-Americans faced unprecedented (and undeserved) discrimination at home. He jailed political dissidents. Even Helen Keller, the deaf-mute who spoke more eloquently than most, regularly protested the Wilson administration.

Wilson despised the Constitution, treating the Founding Charter of our country as forever flawed, an aberration for a modern world, in which the right-thinking people would have more control and a better handle on governing men, rather than a government based on the consent of the governed.

Since Rep. Langevin loves Wilson quotes so much, I wonder how he would comment on some of these less pithy (and rather pitiable and patently impalatable) comments?

About Presidential power, Wilson commented:

“The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can . . .if Congress be overborne by him. . . it will be from no lack of constitutional powers on its part, but only because the President has the nation behind him, and the Congress has not.”

 

Congress is elected by the nation. Of course they have the nation behind them (at least, in theory). The Constitution invests in the President the power to execute the laws of the land, but not to make them (that’s your job, Langevin!).The President takes an oath to defend the Constitution, which includes protecting the freedom, citizenship, and vote of all Americans (including the black ones)

About state sovereignty, Wilson shared:

The old theory of the sovereignty of the States has lost its vitality. . .We are impatient of state legislatures because they seem to us less representative of the thoughtful opinion of the country than Congress is.

 

 

While Congress is getting nothing done, red states are receiving more residents, more wealth, and more power. Today, the reality is quite the reverse: the states are impatient with an improvident, exorbitant Washington which taxes and takes and takes its toll on taxpayers.

Following protests surrounding the sudden dismissal of a black civil servant regarding unequal treatment in the White House, Wilson responded:

Segregation is not humiliating, but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.

Here’s a modern-day translation for Wilson’s celebration of “separate but equal”: “You people should get used to your place.” Yikes!

From Wilson’s heavily biased chronicle A History of the American People:

The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self preservation… until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.

Perhaps Rep. Langevin would like to explain his fascination with a man who not only served in the White House, but applauded people who wore white hoods (and terrorized black people, then burned crosses on their lawns)?

Director D. W. Griffith based his heavily racist film Birth of a Nation on Wilson’s prejudiced polemic. Wilson loved the film so much, he granted the picture a private screening in the White House. About the film, He commented :

It is like writing history with lightning; my only regret is that it is all so true.

Wilson believed that the Southern states were overrun by African-American zombies who would rape a white woman without delay? And this man was an academic from Princeton, too (New Jersey should disown any connection with this wretched man)

Langevin is an Obama fan, too. He reads President #44’s The Audacity of Hope. Langevin loves quoting Wilson, yet Wilson would be appalled at the audacity of a black man being President, let along being present in the White House. Very disturbing

Tribute to Fiscal Conservatism

2012 US Senate candidates Todd Akin (R-MO and Richard Mourdock (R-IN) advanced in the General Election for those seats with the certainty of winning, but they ended up losing over stray remarks over abortion. So goes the political thinking of our time. Granted, they needed to think through their views before voicing them. The notion that their staunch limits on abortion alone did not ruin their chances. Presidential candidate Herman Cain also supports abortion only in the case of the endangerment to the life of the mother, but he never made it an issue, and did not dwell on it as Akin and Mourdock did.




Those two Senate candidates deserve a vote of thanks from the fiscal conservatives of their party, even if their poorly phrased comments pointed out the divergent views of the GOP's stance on abortion. Beyond the poor use of the phrase of "legitimate rape", Akin outlined a policy of "optimizing life." In the cases of tubal pregnancy, he supported an emergency abortion. He also lauded our military in the Middle East and applauded our peace officers who risk their lives to save. As for Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, he never suggested that rape is "sometimes God's will". The truth is that God takes the worst actions of man and by His grace transforms good out of it. As a specific example, James Robison of "Life Today" was conceived in rape, yet he has done masterful good for the world through his ministry on television and throughout the world. Sadly, Twitter, Facebook, and Internet-media took the childish "telephone game" to the extreme and distorted his statements beyond recognition.





Unfortunately, pundits like firebrand Columnist Ann Coulter were implacably unforgiving toward her two Republican colleagues, claiming (without any evidence) that the two candidates were preening for the votes of the religious right. Ironically enough, liberal-leaning Gwen Ifill of PBS championed Mourdock and Akin for their integrity views on life at conception. Rather than deeming them extreme, she esteemed them, which reflects a principled view of life and the role of government in preserving life. Now, whether those views or not is a matter for government is another matter altogether.





Beyond Akin and Mourdock's misstatements about abortion and life, the fearful recriminations of the left played up their support for the drastic reduction in government. Their losses should not shame the Republican Party into moving away from its principles, but toward a more principled platform for making their case without losing it to poor messaging.



Akin openly criticized the government's role in setting prices and wages, a policy which businessmen across the country agree on. He indicted the federal student loan program as a "cancer of socialism" because government subsidies create inflation, which pushes up tuition, followed by the costly debt weighing on graduates who cannot find work because interventions like minimum-wage laws discourage businesses from hiring. These terrible economic policies resemble "musical chairs", minus the entertainment value.



Mourdock’s opposed Obama’s auto bailouts (so did Romney). Why? Because they robbed pension funds from Indiana's teachers and police officers. Those secured bond-holders were denied the protection which they were entitled to in federal bankruptcy court. Such legal wrangling on behalf of educators and peace officers does not fit in a Twitter feed.



Mourdock also pledged that as a Senator, he would not to budge on revenue unless Congress enacted real spending cuts. Current Washington bipartisanship, according to Mourdock, has ended up like this:



"One side has said 'Let's spend $100 billion' while the other side has said, 'Let's spend $50 billion'. Both sides then compromise on spending $75 billion and drive this country deeper in debt."



Mourdock rejected this kind of "bipartisanship". Of course, headlines with "Mourdock wants cuts" or "Akin cares about entry level workers" do not sell papers spur website views.



The two candidates' attention to fiscal realities and real reform set them up for opposition in their senate races. Instead of talking about rape, the life of the mother, and the decision to terminate a life, Akin and Mourdock needed to focus on the rape of government spending which is hurting American mothers and their children ( those born and unborn) for years to come. They were selling this message pretty well to their conservative constituencies. Small wonder that their "Big Government" Democratic challengers pounced on stray remarks rather than offer a differing economic policy, since they never had one.



Aside from their social views, Akin and Mourdock should be honored for their commitment to fiscal discipline at all costs. Let's hope that the GOP accents the fiscal message while moderating the delivery of the social message in elections to come. Even Presidential candidate Mitt Romney agreed that a platform of “no choice” is not acceptable.

Governor Brown is Locked Up About Early Release

Governor Edmund "Jerry" Brown re-entered office in 2010 (her had served as governor from 1975-1983) with a ten-point lead ahead of Ebay CEO Meg Whitman, a pro-choice and now pro-gay marriage Republican who had hoped that her business savvy could help turn California around. After millions of campaign dollars for press, radio, and television ads (including a very winning commercial showing Bill Clinton accuse Jerry Brown of trying to undo Prop 13), Whitman still could not win. Brown actually got the worse sentence, in retrospect. Incarcerated in Sacramento with liberal Democratic legislators ready to riot if they cannot spend more taxpayer dollars, with public sector unions (including the vocal and powerful prison guards union), pension problems with structural deficits, Governor Brown must fall to sleep at night wondering why someone did not shank him before he decided to step back into the governor's mansion.

The most looming threat facing the governor this year, however, has nothing to do with spending, taxes, or the bureaucracies that strangle California's capacity to recovery and retain the growing exodus of residents. The biggest issue is California's prison overpopulation, which has become tantamount to "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Supreme Court. Resisting any dangers to public safety (as well as potential business investment), Governor Brown submitted another Supreme Court appeal to prevent the forced federal order requiring that the state of California release 10,000 inmates by year's end from the Golden State's overcrowded prisons. The Court demurred, and the prisoners must be released.

The prison system and its overcrowding are a disgraceful symbol of the essential problems locking up economic recovery in California.

Why are so many Californians behind bars, to begin with?

Governor Brown owns some of the blame. In his 1970s "Moonbeam" phase, Brown supported mandated sentencing for all cases, thus removing from judges the discretion to reduce sentences or even opt for probation and community service in more complicated cases (a first-time, youthful offender, for example, or straitened circumstance which take a man off the path of the straight and narrow). The controversial tenure of first female California Supreme Court Justice (also Chief Justice) Rose Bird , a Jerry Brown appointee, highlighted the public's frustration with a perception of government permitting rampant criminality. Moreover, Bird's staunch (and to critics personal and unprofessional) opposition to the death penalty was undermining deterrence. She also struck down the "use a gun, go to jail" enhancements. In 1986, she became the first recalled California Supreme Court Justice.

A tough-on-crime mandate in the 1980s and 1990s stirred voters and lawmakers to enact stricter sentencing. The progressive prison politics of the 1970s (with overly lenient sentences from liberal judges) disturbed voted. The initiative process only added to the overpopulation problem. With the tragic kidnapping and murder of Polly Klaas, voters signaled their support for a three strikes law, which would incarcerate felony offenders for three times the sentence if convicted of a second strike, followed by a term of twenty-five to life for a third. Recidivism rates have remained high in California, as rehabilitation programs have been cut, not just because of budget shortfalls, but also the voters' conviction that rehab does not work. No matter how many people get locked up, they have to come out again. With no training, with no skills, 65% of parolees return to prison.

Tougher law, tougher attitudes about crime, and the tough union presence has increased the number of prisons. There's a great deal of money to divvy out with private contracts, and unions representing prison employees see nothing but profits, and easy politicians who will comply. The prison population exploded to 163,000 in 2006, yet because of court-ordered realignment, has diminished to 144,000. Still, the federal order requires that prison operate only at 137.5% of capacity (about 110,000). Overcrowding will still persist.

What can be done in the short-run as well as the long-run to prevent California's prison from overcrowding?

California constructed more prisons in surplus days. Because of voter resistance to new prison construction, plus a lingering recession, realignment to county jails and early release of non-violent offenders have eased overcrowding. Unlike other supermajority Democratic states like Rhode Island or Illinois, the dangers of tax-and-spend statism have a more lethal face in California, where tough loves require high taxes, yet voters are tired of paying for them.

Like many progressive (i.e. blue and bankrupt) states, California overcriminalizes and underprepares, panders to public employee associations and pilfers the private citizens. A reduction in penalties for non-violent crimes would reduce the number of inmates. Decriminalizing low-level controlled substances would provide a revenue source as well as reduce incarcerations. Fundamental reforms which would restrict the power of prison unions, like paycheck protection and lobby inhibition, would free up legislators to serve their state, and not those special interests.

From government waste to union collusion, the state of California can find no better symbol of its symptomatic distress than the prison system. With the threat of rising crime rates and a hastening exodus of California residents, plus the unaltered budget and spending problems, Governor Brown is locked up because of early release.

Gina Raimondo: You KO'd My 401(k)!

In my previous piece, I was whining because General Treasurer Gina Raimondo had not filed a lawsuit against California Governor Jerry Brown. Still, California’s chief executive (if this Democrat can take the lead against his own party) has more pressing, depressing, and all out distressing issues. He has been busy with court proceedings of a different kind this past week, as the United States Supreme Court has refused to enjoin a federal court order which requires the state of California to release ten thousand inmates from the overcrowded prison population.



California residents will be locking their doors tight for the next three months. At least we can see the thugs headed our way. As for Rhode Islanders, the thieves who have decimated the pension funds cannot be locked up, and the lady in charge of saving the state’s retirement funds, “Mondo Raimondo” has not done the “mondo” job which voters, which pensioners were expecting of her.



Not only has Gov. Jerry Brown gone down once again, it looks as if GT Gina Raimondo might be facing a lawsuit or even jail time, too. She was supposed to be fighting for Rhode Islanders’ retirement, to ensure that no one was left widowed and dispossessed with not a cent to their name.



How has pension reform been working out in Rhode Island, so far?



The fund took in an eleven percent investment , half of the stock market’s general disbursement of blessings on investors. All told, the pension fund lost out on $700 million. With hedge funders like these, who needs enemies? Then there are reports that the payouts will force people to pay in more. The fund will cost $20 million beyond the projected costs compared to last year. Philip Keefe, president of SEIU Local 580, indicted Raimondo for paying out too much to hedge fund managers, when more of the money should pay into their coffers.



Of course, should anyone respect the views of a union leader on fiscal responsibility and pension reform? Union leaders want pension reform their way. More money for workers means more money for the union, and more money for the leaders. Someone has yet to call out the Money Pig in the Middle of the Room: the public sector unions which take the money from the workers to fund the candidates who grant them the raises, the pensions, the benefits, which in turn must be paid, or else. For the record, breaking away from the SEIU is a wise move which Rhode Island employees should consider in the near future. The Aviation Safeguard Association broke away from the Los Angeles International Airport Chapter of the SEIU, and now they make more money than before.



So, Rhode Island taxpayers will pay in more not just now, but for four more years (at least). How many civil servants have already lost money while working: that’s a story worth telling, too.



What can Maybe Raimondo has not been praying to the right people. Some kind words to St. Jude for starters might help, since Jude is the patron saint of lost causes (Raimondo might want to ask about divine intervention for her gubernatorial bid, too). From St. Jude we come to Pt. Judith , a Rhode Island pension investment which suffered steep losses two years in a row before turning a positive. Granted, venture capital is an adventure for the one who gambles, although the ride turns into a roller-coaster of sickening trends when it’s your money getting spent, invested, or lost.



How much are Rhode Island leaders paying their hedge fund managers? Raimondo has yet to speak face to face with anyone. (It’s time to put a face on this issue, Speaker Fox!)



Despite her winning campaign pledges, Raimondo did not keep her promise that there would be “Truth in Numbers” for Rhode Island pensions. Mindsetter Russel J. Moore emailed the General Treasurer frequently for updates on how much money was going where. “No!” was the answer to any requests for public documents. How interesting, yet disturbing in its predictability, that public records are never released to the public. When Moore requested information on how much money went to Wall Street Hedge Fund Managers, the state’s Chief Investment Officer offered and uninvested response:



We don’t have the comprehensive numbers yet, just because it takes a little while to get everything together and finalized.



No comprehensive numbers? One wonders how Rhode Island retirees will comprehend their golden years without a nest-egg. Perhaps Raimondo would like to contribute something from her warchest for Governor. Speaking of which, the General Treasurer must be quite a treasure with hedge fund managers, since the pension system relies on private as well as generic investment. But wait, she received $1,000 from John Sabat, a hedge fund manager at SAC Capital Advisers . Now the SEC may pay them a visit, since SAC faces fraud charges, and nothing this big has hit the news since Arthur Anderson’s fast and loose follies with Enron.



By the way, the lawyers defending SAC Capital donated $5,500 to Raimondo. Will she need to post bail any time soon?

Bitterness Cannot Stop God's Betterness

Consider once again the example of Naomi in the Book of Ruth.

She was left with nothing, so she thought.

She was bitter because she had a wrong view of God, that it was His fault that her life was completely desolate.

Yet God was just setting her up for greater reward, with a kinsman-redeemer waiting to take in her daughter-in-law, restore her wealth and fortune, and grant her a name and fame in her hometown.

In a greater fashion, God the Father has provided us a Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who takes us from dead in our trespasses to alive and seated in heavenly places in Christ.

Yet for a long time, I spent too much of my time fighting my bitterness, as if the feelings of frustration would actually stop God's blessings from flowing in my life. The sense of guilt and reproach which overcame me because of these feelings, the sense of shame for having suffered the losses which I had endured seemed too much for me.

In trying to break free of the hurt and the shame, which He has already redeemed me from, I ended up frustrating the grace of God in my life (Galatians 2: 20-21)

We cannot enter into a life which He has already given us!

"

James McGovern(ment) Gets a New Office

Congressman James McGovern (or McGovernment, as one Go Local reader pithily commented), has opened up a new office in Worcester. An incumbent Massachusetts Democrat (yes, a deadening tautology, but bear with me), Rep. McGovern now has three offices in his 2nd Congressional District. My Congressman, Henry Waxman, only has two offices, yet his Congressional district spans the entire Santa Monica Bay, from the South Bay to the Valley.

McGovern must be busy doing the business of the people. . .

McGovern just introduced the Wounded Warrior Service Dog Act, which will allocate five million dollars for the next five years to help train assistance canines for wounded veterans. Helping our wounded warriors is a worthy cause. Then again, I hope that McGovern has cosponsored legislation which will get our troops out of Afghanistan, too. American forces are fighting a losing battle in Central Asia, where the identity of the enemy often remains interminable, the boundaries of battle undetermined, and the fighting fierce yet intermittent. Why not eliminate the rising number of wounded veterans in the first place? And how about all those extraneous military bases, like those troops stationed in Germany?

Furthermore, Rep. McGovern should demand oversight and investigation into the poor treatment of our veterans when they return stateside. Thousand of homeless veterans barely subsist on medications and food allotments, when they should be resting and recuperating at the Brentwood VA, for example. He and Congressman Henry Waxman should co-sponsor legislation which will force expedited service and construction in all Veterans Administrations throughout the nation.

What other issues has McGovern been governing about?

He has given nineteen speeches (so far) to "End Hunger Now!", with the latest speech highlighting the importance of chefs. Instead of talking about ending hunger, he ought to talk about ending joblessness, which will end when the federal government stops taking from the makers and making more takers. Still, he claims over and over that this country can end hunger once and for all.

To protest the recent reformed farm bill, which enacted massive cuts to the Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program, or food stamps, McGovern has joined the challenge to live on $4.50 a day so that he can endure the same privations as food stamp recipients. He must not be using Bay State EBTs, since residents have received plastic with thousands of dollars to spend. Nothing ensures waste like giving a man another man's money.

Hunger is a serious issue, but McGovern has no business expanding the government to help end this problem, for privation of any sort cannot be resolved under the purview of the state. In many cases, government intervention creates more losses. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt attempted to aid farmers struggling with diminishing prices, he ordered millions of animals slaughters and acres of farmland burned. Imagine all the people who could have been fed with all of that food.

Also, the lawyer lobby in Washington and throughout the country have eaten away at initiatives to end hunger. Legal wrangling prevents supermarkets from donating excess food. The threat of lawsuits following potential contamination has so spooked supermarket leaders, that they take no chances and throw away all their unsold merchandise. Tort reform to protect non-profit charities would go a long way to end hunger. Homeless charities wisely allocate resources because they discourage just giving food, since most people struggle with greater needs. Help a man to a job, and you have done more than feed his stomach: You have prospered him body and soul with a reason to live and give. A man's hunger for worthy and wealth must be cared for.

What else has McGovern been up to?

To his credit, McGovern has cosponsored legislation which will limit the National Security Agency from spying on Americans without a warrant in connection with terrorism. The legislation further H.R. 2399, the Limiting Internet and Blanket Electronic Review of Telecommunications and Email Act (LIBERT-E Act) also requires that FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) courts release all court documents to Congress and provide a summary of proceedings to the public. Then again, Rep. McGovern's concern about our privacy on our phones and over the Internet clash with his insistence that the government must take from some to provide for those who will not work for themselves.

Republican President Gerald Ford once said:

"A Government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything away."

In other words, A government which the people depend on to feed them (with food stamps), to clothe them, to subsidize them from womb to tomb is a government that is empower to subtract individual liberties without an uproar.

Instead of passing laws to help veteran assistance dogs and giving speeches to end hunger, here's a better idea to fight hunger, Mr. McGovernment: Lose the new office and the get the government out of our lives altogether!

Of course, with a posh salary, excellent benefits, and a easy job (he was reelected unopposed four times), McGovern has no problem living off the government.

With a name like McGovern, why would anyone assume otherwise?

Gina Raimondo: You Didn't Sue Jerry Brown!

This California Conservative has highlighted what the Ocean State and the Golden State have in common: the good (food), the bad (financial crises and public sector union dominance), and the ugly (Assembly Speakers who refuse to face issues and instead talk about gay rights instead of everyone else’s).

I had such hopes for Rhode Island because National Review Columnist Michael Barone, a conservative's conservative, evinced modest appreciation for for supermajority Democratic Rhode Island, where pension obligations and public sector union strangling have forced cost-cutting pain and deep-rooted wrangling with city leaders and citizens. Because the Rhode Island state pension is taking in a miserly yield and failing to cover costs, Democratic standard-bearer David Boies filed a lawsuit to compel Rhode Island to fix the pension problems. Since there is no state contract firmly in place, Boies' legal challenges should face fewer challenges in court. Finally, a trial attorney is willing to go after the third-rail of public sector union-statehouse politics. Barone esteemed this approach most likely because of the aggressive seriousness of state leaders to prevent the state from bankruptcy. Otherwise, they would have to cut every statewide service just to service retiree pensions.

California had (or rather, still has!) the same problems. While liberal attorney David Boies brokered an initiative to assist the city of San Jose in Silicon Valley (which now has a majority Republican city council for the first time in a long time!), Boies is still working with the broke and burdened state of Rhode Island and their General Treasurer Gina Raimondo.

When I learned that Rhode Island is so liberal (so far), I understood why the spending was overspent. When I say the small numbers for Republicans (so far), I wondered how Republicans can wake up in the morning without fleeing South never to return. Still, voters should reject the snark which supposes Republicans so recalcitrant that they cannot win again. Greater still, the Democratic leadership in Rhode Island has shown some diligence in turning around a government set to sink into Massachusetts Bay in the same manner that Greece is drowning in red ink in the Mediterranean.

For that reason, I begged General Treasure Gina Raimondo to “Sue Jerry Brown” .

He’s the Governor of California, for those of you who don’t know (or don’t care). Still loyal to his party (the Democrats), he remains the only (kind of) conservative voice in Sacramento, forced to play adult as the state’s chief executive, despite the tax-and-spend California statehouse Democratic supermajority. Thankfully, Democrats are not yet a hypermajority (like in Providence), and Dems may lose the “super” very soon since a Republican just won a state senate seat in a two-to-one Democrat district in the California Central Valley, and there are more special elections to come (Do not despair, Rhode Island GOP. If we can do it, so can you!).

About Rhode Island and pension obligations, The New York Times could not fit the print more simply: "The Little State With a Big Mess”, with pension obligations worse than any other state. I had first believed that Gina Raimondo, a Providence-born Rhodes Scholar, could teach the national Republicans and the Democratic in my state about courage to cut costs and drastically reform pension obligations. If she could face liberal Rhode Islanders and candidly explain that the government cannot pay, then perhaps there was hope for my state, too.

If the Providence public library system can partner with a non-profit in order to stay open, then perhaps a business climate which encourages investment with lower taxes, spending, and regulatory burdens could invite investors to partner with the struggling schools in the state. Recently, a dedicated teacher announced on YouTube that he was quitting his job as a second-grade teacher because of the hamstring standardized testing and overbearing rules which frustrate real teaching and real learning. President Obama has already issued waivers for "No Child Left Behind." Every Democrat, meaning almost everyone, in Rhode Island should jump at the chance for Rhode Island public education to waive one of the chief "legacies" of President George W. Bush and request the waiver, too.

As a California resident, I wish that the Democrats in my state had the courage to do what Rhode Island General Treasurer Raimondo and her Democratic colleagues are doing: talk to voters, tell them the truth, and outline a plan which will hurt everyone a little in order to save everyone a lot more. I wanted Mr. Boies to file a claim against Jerry Brown and the California supermajority, in which all of them have taken money from public sector union elites. No doubt they will do nothing about the looming bankruptcy threatening my state for fear of threatening their power in Sacramento.

Unfortunately, Raimondo and David Boies have not followed through on my request. Governor Brown is going down alone taking on his progressive posse in Sacramento, and now I read that Raimondo has not been the latter rain that Rhode Island needed, after all.

Is there any hope left in Rhode Island? Time will tell (More on that later).

Speaker Perez: Speak Up for All Marginalized Californians

California Assembly Speaker John Perez (D-Los Angeles) has the distinction of being the first openly gay statehouse speaker in California history. While he was the first elected official in the country with this orientation, Assembly Speaker Gordon Fox of Rhode Island beat Perez by one month as far as installation is concerned for the first gay statehouse speaker in US History. Perez was not the first openly gay member of the California state legislature, either, a record which belongs to Sheila Kuehl (D- West Los Angeles and Ventura), who is now mulling a run for Board of Supervisor to replace retiring Zev Yaroslavsky.


Still, Because of his connections with LGBT (and now Q for questioning interests, no one should be surprised that he is advancing causes for that lobby in California. Last month, Perez positioned his speakership and power behind AB 1266, a bill which would require schools to respect the rights of transgendered students, including accommodations which permit a child who was a boy and now a girl to enter into the women's restroom on a school campus, and vice versa (I'm already confused. Are you?)

Perez offered his relational rationale for supporting the bill:

Now in government, it is important that we stand up and look for the rights of marginalized individuals and individuals that don’t have much of a voice. And that’s what this bill speaks to.

Perez claims to represent the rights of all marginalized citizens in the state of California, I beg to differ. There are disparate, marginalized voices all over the Golden State crying out for an end to the tax-and-spend, regulate-frustrate stupidity sinking this state, and Perez does not seem interested in listening to them.

Let's talk about the students suffering in substandard schools throughout California. How many pupils have to compete for their teachers' attention in classes with forty students or more? Even wealthier school districts like Palos Verdes Unified are contending with thirty-six students per fourth grade teacher. "That's a lecture!" one parent complained. In the Santa Monica-Malibu District, parents are complaining that their kids are not getting their fair share of tax dollars from Sacramento, and even within the district’s wide boundaries, parents in Malibu still feel short-changed by decisions which benefit Santa Monica schools at their expense.

When will Speaker Perez speak up for our students?

Instead of lecturing the state legislature on fairness for transgendered students, Speaker Perez should be lecturing his Democratic colleagues about the critical importance of a proper education. Then again, Perez reportedly fluffed his academic credentials, claiming to be a Cal Berkeley graduate, an oft-repeated misprint which Los Angeles leaders have repeated to this day. The best interests of our students and our schools must not mean much to Perez.

Besides the students, there are the homeowners in our state. With the passage of Prop 13 in 1978, property owners got a reprieve from the tax-and-spend state legislature’s wasteful habits subsidized by hard-working residents. Commercial properties also benefit from the tax reforms, which grant some relief to statewide businesses struggling to make ends meet. This term, the Democratic supermajority is poised to raise taxes, increase government spending, and introduce regulations which protect fish and environmental causes, yet leave farmers out to dry and drive businesses away.And there’s another group of marginalized individuals in California: small businesses and farmers. Because of the water wars, the environmental regulations (including Cap and Trade), and tax hikes which cover the legislature’s overspending, but do not fix the structural deficits or amoral values of a government bent on growing itself, even if everyone else is pushed away in the process.

Then there are the pensioners in California, whose margins of retirement diminish as pension funds remain insolvent and depleted. Men and women who served their state in public office, the majority of whom paid faithfully into their retirement funds, wonder whether their money will be there when they retire. Rhode Island pensioners have already faced cuts to their retirement monies, and Detroit workers are bracing for losses, as well. When will Perez talk tough to union leaders who position their interests ahead of the public interest?

Then there are the non-violent criminals in our overcrowded state prisons. Despite repeated appeals from current California office-holders and former legislators, the United States Supreme Court has refused to enjoin the federal mandate to decrease the overcrowded California prison populations. What has contributed to the massive population increase in our prisons? The drugs laws, which in our country have already been challenged in Colorado and Washington, along with medical exemptions in California. It’s time for Perez to represent the marginal individuals who struggle with drug addiction, who are condemned to repeat the pattern of dependence because of the illegal label forced on the habit. Rescind the immoral drug laws, and our prison populations will decrease substantially.

Other marginal communities which Speaker Perez has ignored include the homeless veterans in the Los Angeles area, the welfare recipients induced then seduced to remain dependent, and everyone else frustrated by Sacramento tax-and-spend stupidity.

When will Speaker Perez speak up for the rest of us marginalized Californians?