Welfare Fail in San Pedro, CA (and What to Do About it)

Welfare is a short-term fix for an immediate crisis,  but it must not turn into a way of life, and it cannot be a lifestyle.

Fifteen years ago, I worked in a San Pedro foodbank called "The Crossing". While working their in Thanksgiving, I noticed that some of the homeless and needy who arrived there had an imperial attitude. They expected their food, and would get huffy and arrogant if they did not get what they wanted when they wanted it.

Welfarism is poisonous on many levels. It breeds sloth and insolence in people, enabling them not to work or provide anything for themselves or to serve others.

An accute example of this welfare entitlement mentality forced a church in San Pedro, CA to stop free lunches.

San Pedro church lunches suspended due to ‘aggressive behavior’

Sign in front of Mary Star of the Sea Church. (Chuck Bennett / Daily Breeze Photographer)

Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church in San Pedro has temporarily shut down a program that provides free sack lunches to the hungry, many of them homeless, citing aggressive behavior on the part of some of the clients.

Charity cannot become a subsidy for crime or sloth, or abusive behavior. No matter what the circumstances of poor and homeless individuals, an expectation of good behavior remains.

The weekday service, run by volunteers through the church’s Christian Care ministry, is set to reopen Monday, according to a notice posted on the church door this week, but organizers warned that it may end up a permanent closure if behavior doesn’t improve.

Poverty is not  just about a lack of money. Charity has to heal the entire person, not just provide food for the stomach and shelter for the  head. Many people are homeless because of a lack of education and training, some may argue. Did they have a proper upbringing? Did they have support systems as children before becoming adults?

“Due to an increase in aggressive behavior by some of our clients, we will be closed for lunches for 1 week: Aug. 24 to Aug. 28, 2015,” the notice read. “We will reopen on August 31st. If poor behavior continues we may have to close the lunch program.”

The most successful charities to not just give food or money, The provide shelter, counseling, Biblical training, and help individuals prosper in their souls, so that they can prosper and be in health in every other aspect of their lives.

Mary Star of the Sea Inner Enclave

Members of the Christian Care ministry could not be reached for comment after several attempts Tuesday.

Does anyone need to ask or tell them anything else? They should not be blamed or slighted for expecting better behavior from individuals seeking food. However, charities in the South Bay need to do more than just hand out food.

The move comes at a time when the homelessness issue has exploded in San Pedro, prompting special neighborhood council meetings and numerous online debates. Mary Star has been passing out the sandwiches from its church doors in the 800 block of Seventh Street for nearly three decades.
Several churches throughout the South Bay and Harbor Area have similar programs.

Why is there so much homelessness in San Pedro? How about the lack of available jobs? Perhaps the overabundance of government welfare has turned the Harbor region into a magnet for homeless people. LA City has made it harder for businesses to thrive while doing nothing about proper housing for individuals who live and work in the region.

By the way - the answer to affordable housing is not rent control or Section  subsidies. The fact is that lots of people want to live in the mild, temperate, and beautiful South Bay, and the competition for housing will raise prices. Of course, jacking up the minimum wage has forced up rental prices, too, along with the rules and regulations within cities,

A study released this week reported a dramatic rise in chronic homelessness, citing a lack of affordable housing and a stagnant labor market as contributing factors.

"Stagnant labor market"? Industrious people are looking for ways to deal with this. Some people are moving back in with their parents, or they moving in with other people and splitting their rent. I know a number of people who work more jobs, or they cut spending. Mary Star of the Sea is not responsible for the homelessness problem, and they should not have to endure criticism or scrutiny,

In San Pedro, the issue has taken over social media sites as community members argue about what to do about the uptick in encampments on city streets and parks, often accompanied by public urination and defecation, panhandling and other behavior or crimes that have alarmed, angered and frustrated many residents who believe the situation is part of a growing regional and local crisis.
Debates mostly center over where to build more transitional shelters or whether to allow hubs of small, rudimentary houses on vacant lots to exist as encampments.

Extreme proposals have suggested moving homeless people into less inhabited regions of Los Angeles County.

Hundreds are expected to turn out from 6-8 p.m. Sept. 3 for Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino’s community forum on homelessness at the Warner Grand Theatre in downtown San Pedro.
Questions are being taken in advance via a dedicated Facebook page — San Pedro Homelessness Forum — for the panel that will include Greg Spiegel, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s homeless czar; Los Angeles Police Department Senior Lead Officer Deon Joseph, who has spent the past 17 years policing downtown’s Skid Row; and Shari Weaver, director of the Family Resource Center at Harbor Interfaith Services in San Pedro.

Los Angeles has done nothing but make it harder to make it in the city, and welfarism has become too common a way of life. There is a lack of local control for communities of interest to do something substantial.

Improving the quality of local schools would help. Giving adults and private charities more freedom and opportunity to help young people without strong families or stable homes can stave off the cycle of drop-outs who end up struggling, on welfare, or homeless.

Whether this statement offends people are not, we need a revitalization of spiritual growth in our societies. A return to Biblical respect and authority:

Add caption

Most people do not believe that they have any hope, or should have any expectation of doing well in their lives. For too many in the Los Angeles region, poverty and dependence are not just a way of life, they are THE only life they know. 

That is wrong, and they should know the truth, that there is the Loving God, through His Son Jesus, who has nothing but our best interests at heart -- not the government! -- and that prosperity is available to all who will believe. Why is this message not being preached in local churches? They can do much more than handing out lunch on the weekdays.

Once again, notice that food does not lead to soul prosperity. What poor choices or mental illnesses have contributed to a heavy move of homelessness among so many in the region? The central problem rests on much more than money or lack of space.

Daily Breeze Fail: GOP Deserves Praise for Ending Ex-Im

The Daily Breeze went back to editorializing in place of journalism once again, this time pinning the upcoming Boeing lay-offs to those "heartless" Republicans in Congress.

The bigger problem is the pervasive spending of the federal government, the over-extended dependence of South Bay jobs and the economy on this money. 

Boeing Logo

Boeing plans hundreds of layoffs at lagging satellite division in El Segundo

Boeing Co. will cut “several hundred” jobs at its El Segundo-based satellite manufacturing division by year’s end because of declining government orders and lagging commercial sales in the cyclical business.

The company employs about 16,000 workers in California and, in 2013, had about 5,500 employees working on satellites, largely in El Segundo.

“We’ve just seen a continual decline in government satellite spending,” said company spokeswoman Linda Taira. “And even though we have had some new commercial orders in that time, it’s not sufficient to offset the government decline, so it does have an impact on our business.”

A decline in government spending is a good thing, necessary and proper for the long-term public welfare of the state. The cuts need to happen, and they will be painful in the short run, but an economic revitalization in this country has to focus on getting people into robust private sector trade and investment.

In a statement, Boeing said “workforce reductions have been necessary to remain competitive for ongoing and future business.

“The total number of employees likely to be affected is unknown as the company makes ongoing assessments of business needs,” it said. “However, based on current projections, as many as several hundred employees could be affected through the end of the year. “

Barbara Voss, economic development manager for the city of El Segundo, said the company did not give the city a heads-up in advance of the layoff announcement, but said she plans to talk to Boeing officials.

“Certainly, it’s not good news,” she said. “We want to avoid any layoffs if we can and we will be reaching out to the company and offering our support on a local level.”

While commendable that this and every other business wants to avoid layoffs, let us also hold the anti-business climate in California accountable for not allowing small and large firms to expand and hold onto their profit margins. How about making it easier to hire people and keep them on the payroll, without dependence on federal largesse?

Boeing’s announcement represents a sharp decline in the satellite business in just two years.
In 2013, Boeing’s satellite business was booming with a backlog of more than 30 spacecraft on order, prompting an expansion of manufacturing space after more than a decade of shrinking operations.

But now that’s changed rapidly because of the reduction in defense spending coupled with problems in the private sector, such as the Congressional decision not to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

The article makes it clear how unclear the author understands trade and economics. There cannot be problems in the private sector if government funding has been buoying those businesses in the first place. The Export-Import Bank was government cronyism at its most basic. The  closure of this government subsidized loan institution should not other anyone.

The 80-year-old institution’s charter lapsed June 30 and a small group of Republicans who see the bank as a form of corporate welfare are holding up its reauthorization despite its otherwise widespread bipartisan support, observers say.

Who are these observers? Why does the columnist refuse to name names? "Small group of Republicans"? Apparently,  The Daily Breeze forgot that celebrity Democrats in the US Senate also wanted to kill the Ex-Im bank, including Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Boeing customers are the largest users of the bank by dollar volume — last year $765 million in Boeing’s export sales were supported by $431 million in EXIM loans or loan guarantees, said JoAnne Stewart, director of industry cluster strategy at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

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They should not be living off government money.

But commercial satellite provider ABS last month canceled an order with Boeing, primarily because it couldn’t get financing through EXIM.

If they could not get financing through private institutions, that means their investments are not worthwhile in the first place. No corporate or government interest  should be putting our money at risk, either. These Big Government loans are a form of unconscionable corporate welfare. The CEOs and Boards of directors need to take risks with their own money or gaining capital at a slower pace to make larger investments.

South Bay Rep. Ted Lieu, whose 33rd District includes El Segundo, said Tuesday he found the layoff announcement “disappointing and frustrating” and put the value of the lost contract at $130 million.
“Today’s announcement of layoffs at Boeing in El Segundo underscores how House Republicans’ decision to shut down the Export-Import Bank is a complete and utter abrogation of their responsibility to act on behalf of the American people,” he said in a statement. “The shutdown of the bank is having devastating impacts on California’s 33rd District, as well as communities from coast to coast.”

Lieu borrows from the Waxman playbook
"It's the Republicans' fault"

I absolutely despise Ted Lieu for playing the "Waxman GOP Hate" card. Where was Ted Lieu when all the major banks were failing,  and threatened to take the entire financial sector down with them unless Congress handed over one trillion dollars in bailout money? Henry Waxman did not even know that Crystler went bankrupt, yet he supported the GM Bailout, and the company still went bust, taking billions down with it.

In a July letter to Lieu, Fred P. Hochberg, EXIM chairman and president, wrote that last year the bank supported 164,000 American jobs and generated $675 million in profit for taxpayers.
Lieu’s district benefits substantially; Hochberg noted that in May alone EXIM supported $35.7 million in exports from the district that stretches from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to Calabasas and Beverly Hills.

Another big beneficiary was Hawthorne-based Space X; it received $72 million in financial assistance last year that supported $82 million in exports, Stewart said.

Elon Musk is anti-social, some of his subordinates claim. He should be anti-corporate handouts, too. He even claimed that he does not need Uncle Sam's money.

A total of 10 percent of California’s exports derived from EXIM financing came from the 33rd District. And much of that benefited small businesses, which represent the most EXIM transactions.
Still, opponents like House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican whose panel would play a key role in any reauthorization of EXIM, don’t see it that way.
“If you’re a politically connected bank or company that benefits from EXIM, no doubt you would like it to continue,” he wrote in a June 2014 press release. “After all, it’s a sweetheart deal for you. Taxpayers shoulder the risk and you get the reward.

Congressman Hensarling is a champion. Ted Lieu is a chump. By the way, the Daily Breeze did not bother to ask Autumn Burke or David Hadley about the Ex-Im bank and the influence of corporate welfare in the South Bay. Why not?

“But if you work at a small business or other American company competing in the global marketplace, it’s unfair,” he added. “EXIM effectively taxes you while subsidizing your foreign competitors.”

Exactly. It;s not fair. Small businesses cannot afford lobbyists, nor do they have Big Government federal connections.

EXIM backers said statements like that are just plain wrong.

Of course they think it's wrong. They want the money!

The niche bank steps in when private sector lenders can’t or won’t provide financing. It also helps protect manufacturing jobs that are fleeing California, LAEDC officials said.
EXIM also levels the playing field that allows companies like Boeing to compete globally.

Why don't those private lenders get involved? They assess the risk of loaning the money, and they calculate that it's not worth it.

Boeing spokesman Tim Neale said companies like ABS are now turning to EXIM counterparts that provide similar financial help for aerospace industries in nations like Germany, France and the United Kingdom — important Boeing export markets.

“They are understandably looking at other satellite providers outside the United States,” he said. “We’ve been put in a very unfortunate situation by the lack of action on EXIM. ... It is very much a political issue.”

My answer to that? Let those countries shoulder the costs and the failures. Businesses need to thrive in a free market. If they have to depend on government money to survive, then these companies need to reassess their business model or find another means of raising revenue.

Final Reflection

The Substantial bias in this article was telling. Nick Green spoke to Ted Lieu, but never bothered to contact David Hadley or Autumn Burke, or even Ben Allen. The Daily Breeze went out of its way to promote Henry Waxman in its pages, even though he remained a West Los Angeles fixture following his election in 2012 to the newly drawn 33rd Congressional District.

For Lieu to blast Republicans for ending corporate cronyism was very sad and petty. He has not even taken a strong stance against the Iran deal which President Obama and John Kerry have cobbled together, in spite of insistent refusal to submit to Congressional concerns about any negotiations with the rogue terrorist state.

Furthermore, Green talks about "a small group of Republicans", when their lead to end the government's picking and choosing business winners and losers includes prominent Democrats in the House and the US Senate.

The Republican Party members in Washington who have ended the crony Ex-Im bank are champions for taxpayers and this country's long-term fiscal health. As for major South Bay industries like Boeing, they need to invest their wealth and resources more toward private sector expansion. In a country beset with welfarism, let's focus on ending corporate welfare, even if it causes short-term pain for South Bay aerospace companies.

RedState: What Happened to Rand?

US Senator Rand Paul captivated concerned conservatives across the country when he filibustered the appointment of a new CIA Director.

He demanded an answer from the Attorney General whether President Obama could use domestic drone strikes to kill Americans.

He talked for eleven hours, stood his ground on the floor of the US Senate, and gathered national support. One conservative in Palos Verdes, CA was telling me how he sat and watched the whole thing.

What was so mesmerizing, so impressive about the junior US Senator stalling the nomination of the CIA Director?

Someone in Washington DC was disrupting the status quo. With libertarian leanings, and an interest in pushing the federal government as far away from our individual lives as possible, Rand Paul has tapped into the younger set looking for someone anti-establishment but also forward looking.

He appealed on Sunday morning talk shows for the Republican Party to adopt more libertarian stances on key issues in order to bring more states into play. This call for limited government to the greatest extent should not alarm Republicans. Ronald Reagan, while governor of California, declared that libertarianism is the heart of conservatism.

George W. Bush lost that heart, and the GOP lost its staying power for four years, until the Tea Party Movement revived the necessary limited government beat. Paul picked up that impulse, and defeated the Kentucky GOP Establishment and the weakening Democratic Party to become US Senator.

He knows how to work the cameras, and he knows how to arrange legislative deals on the floor in order to accomplish necessary reforms. He has reached out to minority communities, giving standing room only speeches at black colleges as well as CPAC.

He also filibustered reauthorizing the NSA, and talked it to death and dormancy.

Yet for all that Paul has accomplished, he is losing traction and fast, not raising enough money or getting enough media spotlight. Why?

Red State's Erick Erickson offered the following insights:

Here is the guy who should be doing some cross-party fusion. He rallied a lot of Americans in bipartisan fashion on national security. He seemed to be playing his cards right. And . . . ? Bernie Sanders is kicking his butt in campaign fundraising. In fact, I dare say Sanders froze Paul’s chance at fusion. All the little rich libertine millennials that Paul was counting on, instead got excited for Sanders. But I am still really surprised by this.

Millenials are more anti-authoritarian than conservative.  They have no problem with Big Government, as long as it lines their pockets, providing free anything. Such is human nature. Anyone who is authentic in their eyes, whether leaning left or right, will get their attention and gain their support.

Such is the case with younger voters gravitating heavily toward Sanders, who for decades has railed against Big Everything (except government, of course). Rand Paul talks big on preserving our privacy and holding elected officials accountable to the Constitution, but the "Good Guy v. Bad Guy" narrative will trump ideological discussions every time. Such is politics.

Why else might Paul by missing money and support?

To be fair, most of Paul’s contributions are less than $200.00 a piece. That shows he has some real grassroots support. But that’s not enough. He got in Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 58%‘s bed in Kentucky and McConnell made kissy face through his re-election. The moment McConnell’s victory was secure he kicked Paul out of the bed. Paul has misplayed his hand on social issues and, for large donors, national security issues too.

On social issues, I do not agree. The US Senator pushed back against the "War on Women" fraud which DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz tried to play. He has discussed legalizing marijuana, or at least defederalizing it, and aside from millenials (Who are fickle about voting in general, and voting Republican in particular), that issue does not resonate. His foreign policy views have immediately turned off national conservatives. When he declared Republican war hawks responsible for ISIS, Paul lost a great deal of credibility.

On  immigration, he has waffled and wandered in his rhetoric, even though he voted against the 2013 Obamacare of Immigration Reform bills, which thankfully died in the US House of Representatives. He once called illegal aliens "undocumented citizens". His outreach to black communities has left him with a black eye sometimes, in that he places blame on the state when other issues, like the state of black families, needs more attention.

Photos like these have not helped Rand Paul, either:

Sharpton lost a lot of weight, and Paul lost a lot of voters' respect.

Final Reflection

So, what has hurt Paul so much that he has appallingly limited chance of winning the GOP nomination, let alone the Presidency? Erickson offered the following reasons, in light of his genuine surprise at the "new Republican's" bad numbers:

More recently, Paul has failed to gain any traction. Two weeks ago, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) 87% threatened to hold the highway bill hostage over an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood. He was then nowhere to be seen in the fight led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100% and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) 100%. Cruz was all over television and radio getting major press and accolades from conservatives.

It's not enough to pick the right fights, but you have to win them, and raise a national consensus to help you win. Ted Cruz announced his candidacy before anyone else, and Rand looked like a "Me Too" Rand-Come-Lately. The lack of coordination with media as well as messengers has hurt Rand.

Despite his lack of fundraising, Paul is doing the exact opposite of other candidates. When they go to gathers of candidates, Paul avoids them. This includes the RedState Gathering where he is the only invited candidate not coming and the Koch gathering as well.

Why does not he not go out and mix with the crowds and mix it up with his fellow Republican contenders? Even when he fired off at New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the Senator hurt himself more than he helped, and Christie landed a well-placed counter. "You make speeches on the floor of the US Senate so that you can cut videos to raise money for your campaigns."

Other Republicans have taken offense at this narcissistic trend which guilds part of Rand Paul's celebrity. Young voters like him because they think that he is like them, and the last thing this country need is a Presidential who is like us, when he has to do things everyday Americans are neither equipped nor willing to do.

Besides, on from his ideological stances on foreign policy and national security, including his inconsistent relationship with national GOP leaders, no one should be surprised that Paul has not been able to stand out in the midst of a diverse yet receding Presidential crowd.

Massachusetts: A Pretty Red State, Indeed

In a previous post, I wrote about the ruby red tinge taking over central Massachusetts.

Another Boston Globe writer, Evan Horowitz,  had gone a step further a few days after Election Day 2014, and suggested:

Sometimes, Massachusetts looks like a pretty red state

No joke. I would more likely believe that US Senator Ed Markey finally bought real real estate in Western Massachusetts (or had even bought Scott Brown's former Wrentham home.)

Horowitz commented on the final voter dispersal in the 2014 gubernatorial election:

If Martha Coakley ran for governor of western Massachusetts, she’d have won in a landslide. For his part, Charlie Baker would have had a much easier path to victory were he campaigning to be governor of central Massachusetts or the South Shore.

Central Massachusetts, including Worcester. Please, do not tell me that Baker was not aware of the strong groundswell of support he would find in Central Mass. He picked Karilyn Polito as a running mate, did he not?

Massachusetts has a reputation as a very blue state, but geographically it breaks down into some very distinct regions, with differing political preferences and voting patterns.

Election 2004 (Kerry stomped Bush)

The same is true for Pennsylvania, which Democratic strategist James Carville once called a state with two blue ends -- Pittsburgh and Philadelphia-- with a big swath of Alabama in between.

In this week’s election, there were just two big swatches of blue: one in the far west and another pushing northwest from Boston. Beyond that, Massachusetts looked like a pretty deep red.

The maps offered in the Boston Globe interactive do not factor the large population centers and the number of votes per county. No doubt, Boston is going to be blue compared to the redder sections of the state's northern and southern shores. How deep that blueness goes toward effecting the final voter tally does not always come through so clearly.

Was it different in 2010?

Although the 2010 gubernatorial election was won by a Democrat, Deval Patrick, the election map actually looked quite similar to this week’s [Election 2014 results] . Patrick captured a slightly broader area around cities like Boston and New Bedford, but otherwise much of the state was still painted red.

I would further submit that in 2010, Tea Party politics was just making its face known, even in Massachusetts, and the need to organize and fundraise effectively was just beginning. Keep in mind also that "Mr. Governor" Patrick was the incumbent, and they are in general harder to remove from office. The larger swaths of Massachusetts turned out red probably in response to the Democratic Party's harder left-wing edge, which family-oriented blue collar Democrats did not like. The Boston elitist epicenter is turning off the suburbanites, many of whom moved away from Big City Democratic machine chicanery.

Besides, men and women can only stand so much taxation and expenditures without serious representation. The defeat of the computer cloud tax followed by initiatives to end the forever gas tax tapped into the "Taxed Enough Already!" spirit already ready to burst all out, even in Massachusetts.

Horowitz also looked at the lay of the Bay state after the 2012 elections, which surprised everyone, including the Democrats who feared the fallout from Obamacare and Obama's other careless policy ventures.

What about 2012?

Presidential elections are a totally different animal, partly because they attract more voters and partly because Republican candidates are drawn further right by their need to win over conservatives across the south and west of the United States.

This analysis is sound,  but let us not forget that President Obama was a superior campaign organizer. "Organizing for Action", anyone? Conservative activists have documented the Obama machine's remarkable efforts to target swing voters on key issues, let's call it "microtargeting". The databases and formidable campaign work ethic of the progressive, Saul Alinksy juggernaut overwhelmed otherwise Republican enclaves in 2008, and a number of them still had not prepared in 2012.

During his 2012 reelection campaign, President Obama won an overwhelming majority of Massachusetts cities and towns. He carried such a large radius around Boston that it covered up most of central Massachusetts, and he made a similarly strong showing on and near the Cape.
Yet, even with all that extra blue territory, the basic regional pattern still held. Towns in central and southeastern Massachusetts remained less Democrat-friendly than those in Western Massachusetts and those just northwest of Boston (witness the lighter blues).

Horowitz' map contained the wide patch of red in Central Massachusetts, except for Worcester proper. This outcome is not that surprising. Swing districts in Southern California, and some reliably Republican assembly seats suddenly turned blue in 2012 because of Obama's superior efforts.

Republicans learned their lesson in 2013, beefed up their fundraising, technology, and resource outreach. Plus the cascade of scandals from the White House and Democrats across the country (four state senators were arrested, indicted, and/or convicted of felonies. The mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina went to jail. The state assembly speakers of New York and Rhode Island stepped down for corruption charges, too.

And of course -- come 2014, the six-year itch inevitably took its toll, and Republicans found their numbers masssively increased across the country, plus three Republican governors in Democratic states: Illinois, Maryland, and of course Massachusetts.

Massachusetts: A Pretty Red State After All?

Was it always this way?

Figuring out how and when this political pattern took shape is no simple feat. Among other things, it’s likely related to changes in the economies of different areas. But it also touches on questions about why adjacent towns should have such different leanings. Why is Newton so much more liberal than Weston? Why do rural towns in the center of the state vote so differently than those to the West?
I’ll be looking at these questions more deeply in a future piece, but for now, I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts (particularly if you find yourself living on one of those political boundaries.)

Conservatives across the country have pointed out one of the deepest flaws of the Left: they overreach, they push for too much too fast. In the case of President Obama and the diminished Democratic Party left in the wake of his forceful yet foul policies, the negative consequences of unfettered liberalism have sobered up otherwise faithful Democratic partisans to rethink and vote Republican.

WSJ: Conservatives Win on Education

   

Daniel Henninger

Daniel Henninger penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, announcing: “Hey Conservatives, You Won.” What was the big win? Restoring patriotic themes and accurate accounts to the AP United States History exam, a college preparatory test which allows high schools to earn college credit.

In this summer of agitated discontent for American conservatives, we can report a victory for them, assuming that is still permitted.

Last year, the College Board, the nonprofit corporation that controls all the high-school Advanced Placement courses and exams, published new guidelines for the AP U.S. history test. They read like a left-wing dream. Obsession with identity, gender, class, crimes against the American Indian and the sins of capitalism suffused the proposed guidelines for teachers of AP American history.

“Obsession” is the correct word, as identity politics has taken over the proper reading and rendering of United States History. Boys and girls are going to public schools learning everything that is wrong with America instead of following the growing ascent and embrace of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness espoused by the Framers and embraced by all who came to this country’s shores.

As of a few weeks ago, that tilt in the guidelines has vanished. The College Board’s rewritten 2015 teaching guidelines are almost a model of political fair-mindedness. This isn’t just an about-face. It is an important political event.

The Left has targeted major institutions like education, media, and medicine for decades to wage their fight. To their detriment, conservatives, Republicans, and liberty advocates focused merely on winning elections, often the federal ones, at the expense not only of state and local races, but most importantly the major outlets of popular culture: media, education, and entertainment. Even Investors Business Daily editor and cartoonist Michael Ramirez explained the key importance of these venues:

“Conservatives have to gain a foothold in three main pillars of society: education, popular culture and the media.”

Media sites like Hot Air, TruthRevolt, and Breitbart are taking back the media. Now conservative activists are taking back education, and the restoration of America’s foundation principles to the AP exam represents this significant victory:

The earlier guidelines characterized the discovery of America as mostly the story of Europeans bringing pestilence, destructive plants and cultural obliteration to American Indians. The new guidelines put it this way: “Mutual misunderstandings between Europeans and Native Americans often defined the early years of interaction and trade as each group sought to make sense of the other. Over time, Europeans and Native Americans adopted some useful aspects of each other’s culture.”

Cultures and trade rely on mutual exchange and influence, for better and for worse. History must record both sides.

The previous, neo-Marxist guidelines said, “Students should be able to explain how various identities, cultures, and values have been preserved or changed in different contexts of U.S. history, with special attention given to the formation of gender, class, racial, and ethnic identities.” That has been removed. The revised guidelines have plenty about “identity” but nothing worth mounting a Super PAC to battle.

How about a restoration of truth that the “American” identity is something distinct and distinguished, something which many people all over the world want? Why else would so many immigrants seek asylum and status in this country?

Also new: “The effort for American independence was energized by colonial leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, as well as by popular movements that included the political activism of laborers, artisans, and women.” The earlier version never suggested the existence of Franklin—or Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison or anyone resembling a Founding Father. Now they’re back. Even the Federalist Papers were fished out of the memory hole.

The reference to “memory hole” is particularly telling, an allusion to political contrarian George Orwell’s seminal if not prophetic dystopian novel 1984. In that work, proletariat upstart Winston Smith engages in systematically destroying history, rewriting news reports while throwing the true accounts into a “memory hole” for utter destruction. Liberal-progressives have engaged in systemic destruction of full accounts of history in order to advance their own coercive, repressive agenda.

Most incredible of all, the private enterprise system is reimagined as a force for good: “As the price of many goods decreased, workers’ real wages increased, providing new access to a variety of goods and services.”

Understanding history requires a respect for economic realities, including the benefits of free market capitalism, which has rebounded and is in recovery (pun intended).

This conservative victory has the added shaudenfreude of miffing the Left:

To Bernie-Sanders progressives, what happened was a sellout. For ThinkProgress.org, “College Board Caves to Conservative Pressure.

What really happened was the resurrection of an American idea the left wants to extinguish—federalism. Some states began to push back. Legislative opposition to the guidelines formed in Georgia, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Nebraska, Tennessee, Colorado and Texas.

Not just federalism, a central and essential tenet of liberty and diffusion of power both despised by the Left, but also freedom of speech, dissent, and petition pushed back against the leading failure of the Left:

The original AP U.S. history guidelines were a case study in the left’s irrepressible impulse, here or elsewhere, to always go too far. The left always said it just wanted “to be heard.” They were, but it was never enough. The goal was to make the American center-right simply shut up.

Guess what? In a country of 319 million “diverse” people, that is really a hard political goal to lock down, no matter how many institutions are captured.

Is the country polarized? How could it not be? Is there a solution? Take a look at how the AP U.S. history mess was handled. Someone rewrote those guidelines into a reasonable political accommodation. It is not impossible.

By attempting to stifle religious liberty to reducing the individual, destroying the family, and distorting education into indoctrination, the Left went too far in trying to fundamentally transform the AP US History standards.

Conservatives won this fight, and should look forward to more victories in the near future.

Worcester, MA is Going GOP Red (Woot Woot!)

Worcester County is Going Red in Blue MA

I had to rub my eyes when I read the following headline in the Boston Globe:

Slowly but surely, Worcester County has gone Republican

Could this be happening? Is it really possible that one part of Massachusetts is turning into a Republican stronghold, in spite of the fact that the Bay State has not gone Republican since Reagan's landslide reelection in 1984, and they lost their last two Republican Congressman twelve years later?

Apparently, Republicans are again traction in Central Massachusetts, despite decades of Democratic dominance (and corruption).

The Boston Globe reports:


When Representative Richard Neal arrived at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and saw the huge crowd that had turned out that summer day in 2009, he was thrilled. Wow, he thought, more than 200 people had shown up to hear his views on health care.

Those feelings lasted for about 15 seconds into his talk when an elderly woman stood up and began railing at him, egged on by hisses, boos, and raspberries from the crowd when he tried to answer her. It was the beginning of a nearly two-hour session full of rants about death panels, the “government takeover” of Medicare, and sometimes far-fetched fears about the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law the following year.

Obamacare really has soured the Democratic Party brand, even in deep blue Massachusetts. "Mr. Governor" Deval Patrick almost lost his reelection bid in 2010 in the Tea Party wave. A second surge of conservative outrage ensured that Charlie Baker would get the corner office in 2014. Republican state senator Scott Brown took advantage of voter discontent with Obamacare and became the Bay State's first US Senator in nearly forty years. It was a euphoric time for national Republicans and the Tea Party movement. They had made a major dent in a deeply liberal-progressive enclave.

Neal, a Springfield Democrat, felt he was seeing the first explosive evidence of what was brewing at the precinct and ward levels of the towns he represented in Worcester County.

The once Democrat-dominated county — a collection of rural and suburban communities, three small cities, and the city of Worcester — is now a Republican enclave. It is the state’s epicenter for Tea Party activity. Some of the most conservative groups in the state GOP, many of them renegade competitors to the party establishment in Boston, are based in the county.

Incredible. The Tea Party movement is alive and well in the state where its namesake was born over two hundred years ago.

“It’s the most underreported political story in the state,’’ Neal said in a recent interview. His district, for many years until it was redrawn for the 2012 election, spread east from his home city, taking in the southern Worcester County communities along the Connecticut border and reaching into the Blackstone Valley.

First of all  -- of course this Republican resurgence is underreported. The media are biased toward the Left, liberals, and Democrats in general. They don't want to talk about Republicans winning seats and regain traction in one of the bluest states in the Union.

Still, strange indeed that redistricting has put Democrats at a disadvantage in Worcester. The gerrymandering of the Democratic Party (and gerrymandering is named after a Massachusetts governor, by the way) has now seen some of its strength put aside.

The political shift gives Republicans fertile ground in a wide geographical swath in the middle of a very blue state. And it is giving them confidence that Worcester County, with its large — and growing — percentage of the state’s voting population, can be ground zero for its resurgence in Massachusetts.

How have Massachusetts  Republicans worked their way back into power and preeminence in this region?

Two Republicans have recently won election to top county posts that Democrats held for decades. Lew Evangelidis was elected sheriff in 2010, and political novice Stephanie Fattman pulled off a major upset last year when she beat an incumbent Democrat in the race for register of probate.

The Republicans in Massachusetts have learned what Republicans in California are now learning. All politics is indeed local, and starts with conservatives fighting for smaller seats in cities and on school boards. Conservative values have to grow from the ground up to be effective. For too long, conservatives and Republicans wanted to strike out for the big offices and the

A Republican has represented the county on the Governor’s Council at the State House for the past four years. And Fattman’s husband, former state representative Ryan Fattman of Webster, last year crushed a respected longtime Democratic senator, Richard T. Moore.

Ryan Fattman

Ryan Fattman is a powerhouse, a machine of a politician, but one for the force of good. Republican US Senate Edward Brooke often told his charges: "Seek power. There is nothing wrong with power, if you are seeking to do good."

With his choice of local state Representative Karyn Polito as his running mate, Governor Charlie Baker got an extra boost out of the county in last fall’s gubernatorial campaign. Baker won the county with 56 percent of the vote, to Democrat Martha Coakley’s 38 percent. In the 1990 governor’s race, by comparison, Republican William Weld carried the county by one-third of a percentage point over Democrat John Silber and barely eked out a statewide victory.

Baker was smart. He probably knew about the Republican strength he could tap into in that region, and tapping Polito to join him was smart politics to assure his victory in 2014.

And now, for the first time in years, the GOP is making a play in heavily Democratic Worcester city politics, with many of its elected officials and activists rallying behind City Councilor Michael T. Gaffney, a Tea Party-leaning councilor who is challenging Mayor Joseph Petty’s run for a third term this year.

Notice that the mayor is an Independent. The Republican name is not quite strong enough yet to play big, but it is getting there.

Drawn to his antigovernment, antitax rhetoric, Republican officeholders and activists have endorsed Gaffney, a registered independent, setting up a confrontation next November that could demonstrate the party’s reasons for optimism.

Now why would Massachusetts residents start hating government and taxes? Because there is too much of both in their lives. Democrats have done untold damage to the state and their brand has boosted the 1% and created more parasites taking and preventing more from making the most of their lives. Nobody really wants to be a welfare queen. There is too much to life to settle for being dependent on someone else.

“The Republicans and the Tea Party want to make this race a test,’’ said Paul Giorgio, a Worcester political activist and consultant to Petty’s campaign. He predicted Petty would win easily. As for the Republicans’ success countywide, he said: “They’re certainly feeling their oats.”

Paul Giorgio has a dubious, shady past, That alone should indicate why Democrats are doing so poorly.

Kirsten Hughes, the state Republican Party chairwoman, said party leaders see a huge potential for Worcester County to provide a revival for the party that has been outgunned by Democrats for decades.

“Since 2010, there has been an explosion,’’ she said. “It has been increasingly red, but it is now getting deep red.”

Incredible, and inspiring.

Hughes said that because Worcester County has a much larger percentage of voters than the few other GOP enclaves in Massachusetts, mostly in the Cape Cod area, the new crop of legislators and elected county officials finally gives the Republicans a bench of future state political figures, the lack of which has been a major hurdle for the party.

The more Republicans that get elected, the more that can get elected at a higher level. Simple at that.

“That is where the farm team is the strongest,’’ Hughes said. “We think it can be our launching pad for candidates for statewide office.”

Now why are more Bay State residents voting Republican, even if the party affiliations and registration have not changed for the better? One elected official commented about his diminishing support:

 The constituency that sent him to Beacon Hill for so many years — blue-collar workers who believed in FDR’s Democratic Party values and looked upon government as a force for good in their lives — had died off.

While some political activists have commented that demographic changes would doom the Republican Party, the fact is that a large number of the "Old White Vote" which tended Democratic is dying away, and in Massachusetts, this shift is benefiting Republicans.

Another source of the Republicans’ growing strength, according to analysts, is disaffected Democrats who have settled in suburban towns and rural communities and away from rapidly diversifying cities where they grew up. They feel they have lost control of their lives and blame President Obama and liberal politicians.

Really?

Lou DiNatale, a Democratic political analyst and longtime Worcester County activist, said those voters feel alienated from the Democratic Party and its socially liberal, pro-immigration, antigun agenda and are angry over their stagnant wages and what they see as burdensome taxes.

Despite what the media and academia portray, voters do not like open borders, gun control, and they want to make a buck and keep it. That's the American way, and the Democratic Party has declared all-out war on working Americans.

“They have fears of immigrants when there aren’t any in their communities, fears of benefit losses to immigrants, and a hostility to institutions across the board — governments, corporations, the media.

DiNatale and others say those former Democrats feel alienated from their party, believing it has become dominated by elite liberals more concerned with social issues than the issues they care about.


The Boston Globe cannot help but let slip its arrogant, self-justifying liberalism. Americans are not racist, and they do not resent legal immigration. They resent illegal aliens taking advantage of the weak borders and easy government welfare. The anger toward "institutions across the board" all has to do with the poisonous interference of the state into many facets of our lives. Enough is enough.

As Democratic politicians pander to illegal aliens and Big Government elites, a wide swath of voters whom Richard Nixon called "The Silent Majority" are getting angry and riled up enough to do something about the bad policies and wicked governance in their local, state, and federal representatives.

Final Reflection

The Democratic Party in New England has gone too far. President Obama pushed their dangerous policies and doubled down on them, then imposed the hurt nationally. Eventually, the battered wife will find herself in the corner and kill her abused. An enemy pushed into the corner will fight to death. The rapid affront of unparalled secular progressivism has born its bitter fruit, and life-long Democrats from differing coalitions have had enough.

Republicans in blue states and counties have taken over precisely as a check on these monstrous overreaches. In Massachusetts, conservatives are working hard to focus on issues which local shareholders care about, and then win on.

Taking back local seats, rebranding the party,  tapping into the alienation and frustration of the current voter and providing something better which serves the common man, the endangered Republican Party is making friends, influencing elections, and winning seats. The state has a Republican governor for the first time in eight years, who does not carry any of the baggage of the predecessor, and the Tea Party movement has gotten mature and effective in key areas to make a difference.

Worcester, Massachusetts is going red right under Democratic feet in deep blue Massachusetts. This development is something worth celebrating! Woot! Woot!

Woo is going red: Woot! Woot!

NRO: Trump Frump Fail

National Review Online reported on Donald Trump's latest campaign stop in Mobile, Alabama.

Voters should not be surprised to see Democrats as well as Republicans campaigning in one of the most conservative states in the country. The Governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley is starting to show his blue side, raising taxes and going out of his way to promote one of the most liberal Republican Presidential contenders in the field (John Kasich, not Jeb Bush). Bernie Sanders had rallied dispirited and otherwise dormant Democrats in the state as well.

Donald Trump from behind (BostonJerry)

Apparently, according to NRO, Trump underwhelmed:

In an hour-long verbal meanderthon at half-filled Ladd-Peebles Stadium, Trump allowed an atmosphere of electric excitement to dissipate, and then he split town without his promised post-show press conference. As I left the stadium, a red-hatted lady of my acquaintance spotted me and pulled me aside, saying: “Somebody needs to tell that man when to shut the you-know-what up. People were leaving in droves.” 

Well, not entirely droves, but by my estimate, about 15–20 percent of the 18,000 or so attendees — Trump publicity organs had earlier said they expected up to 35,000 — had filed out before Trump wound up his many-versed hymn to his own toughness and deal-making skills.

Aside from bluster and blather, more people did not even bother and went home early. How much longer will conservatives listen to this man praise himself without promising and delivering something better for the country?

This is the Republican front-runner? Trump is a media phenomenon. Fox News had the highest ratings on August 6th, and much of it due to the Donald.

What else?

The line of the evening belonged to Rob Holbert, a former press aide to Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi and now the co-publisher of the port city’s Lagniappe weekly. “That speech was more disjointed,” he said, “than a skeleton after tumbling down four flights of stairs.”

Passion means nothing if it does not communicate anything. Trump has contradicted himself in the same sentence as well as from decade to decade. Yes, he has touched a nerve with the American public, and Republican party leaders are responsible for allowing their representatives and partisan activists to push Big Business and the Chamber of Commerce instead of "We the People" and the United States Constitution.

"Disjointed like a skeleton"? Wow. How bad could it have been? Trump has lots of skeletons in his closet, but he has not run from them. Instead of stumbling out of the closet, Trump threw them out, or rather found nothing to be ashamed of in the first place.

Another comment should concern Trump supporters:

And I woke up this morning to this e-mail from a retired professional who is an outspoken conservative and longtime Mobile civic leader: What happened with Trump? Why was he so late going on stage? Why did he cancel the press conference? Was he insulted by the turnout and had to be talked into going on stage and canceled the press conference because he didn’t want to justify the smaller crowd? Is he a petulant child?

He cancelled one press conference, yet threw out a liberal reporter in another? No wanted to see Trump? Perhaps he is a child, and the only reason he is running for President is the easy media attention and the books he can sell afterwards. Who needs NBC and "The Apprentice" when a national profile has catapulted you to never-ending 24-7 stardom?

Yes, there were still a lot of people there. But so what?

Not to say that Trump’s speech failed to earn some bursts of enthusiastic applause, or that his Mobile appearance was a total bust. Still, compared with the remarkable buzz leading up to the tycoon’s visit, the actual performance was missed opportunity. Typical was this frustrated Facebook post by a local tea-party leader: “Substance!!!!!!!!! No substance!!!!! . . . Trump, please stop rambling. Please, do you have a plan???”

Scott Walker was blowing off some people with "I have a plan for. . " but he finally produced them for health care and immigration. What does Trump have to offer? His closest fans, including Tea Party supporters. are interested in more than just a lot of fame and frolic.

Trump Frump (Michael Vadon)

About the lack of substances:

But once Trump’s familiar riffs against illegal immigrants ran out, so did almost all pretense of discussing policy. Again and again he asserted that foreign countries — China, Japan, and Mexico were his favorite targets — are taking America to the cleaners because we’re “too dumb” to negotiate well with them. And that led to what a great, terrific, fantastic, superb negotiator Trump is and how — repeated ad nauseam — Trump would make everything right because “we will have unbelievable deals” when he’s in charge.

Familiar riffs are getting old, the same way an aged comic telling the same jokes stops being funny.

Donald Trump is a joke of a candidate, and should not be taken seriously, and the fact that he underwhelmed in the buckle of the Bible Belt should dissuade current and future supporters from his campaign.

WaPo Hate: Toles Compares Tea Party Conservatives to Petty Arsonists

In his latest spool, Washington Post’s non-descript liberal political cartoonist Tom Toles equated thuggish, sluggish students with House Reps in Washington DC.

In a two-panel cartoon, Toles presents a youth in a cap writing about what he did during his summer vacation: “Came up with a plan to burn down the school.”

This caption makes no sense. Why would a student share in a classroom assignment his plans to destroy the school? Such a topic is not humorous in itself, since a  number of disturbed students have plotted similar acts of violence and carried them out.

The second panel depicts an adult wearing the Capitol Rotunda on his head. “What I did during Summer Recess: Came up with a plan to shut down government.”

Granted, political cartoons rely on comedic exaggerations for stronger effect, yet there is no comparison equate House members’ decision to shut down the federal government with burning down a school. Such a political equation is not just specious and spurious, but offensive and disturbingly unfunny.

William Murphy: The Puppet Master of 38 Studios

William Murphy

Before Gordon Fox, William Murphy was the most powerful man in the state of Rhode Island. Unlike the chain of felonies and unethical speakers in Massachusetts, who all bowed out from criminal indictment or under investigation, at least one Rhode Island Speaker in recent memory left office because he wanted to. 

Or did he really leave office and give up power to begin with?  

After reading my article about Rhode Island House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello’s connections to 38 Studios, some sources (who insist that they remain anonymous) informed me that Murphy is still pulling all the strings, and he has his fingers all over 38 Studios. Now that Fox has taken the fall, the former Speaker/now convicted felon is done bracing all the heat for the failed video game company and wants to take down more heads with him. 

One of the felonious co-conspirators which Fox would want to take down? Current House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello. 

Mattiello has the biggest reason to prevent an investigation.  

My source shared the following information initially off the record, fearing the repercussion to family and friends as well as employment, because even they got their job through political connections. 

38 Studios was put together with the assistance of Bill Murphy at the point when Murphy was voluntarily stepping down as Speaker. When he stepped down he put Fox in place as Speaker. He also put Mattiello in as [Majority] Leader - Mattiello and Fox hate each other and always have. But Murphy protected Mattiello. When Fox went down Murphy was the unseen hand that moved all the chess players to put Mattiello into the Speaker's Rostrum.  

Mattiello OWES Murphy everything he has to this day. If he allows an investigation to go forward - especially one not hampered by RI politics, he knows it's all over - because if even I knew of the first meeting with Murphy long before it became "news" than other do as well, and that means it can be corroborated, and Mattiello KNOWS an investigation will lead right back to Murphy. And Murphy is smarter than every one of them. He has s--t on them all that will bring them all down if he gets touched. This whole thing is an inside job where a select few got very rich, and the RI public will never know the truth. 

I've never seen Murphy and Mattiello more nervous than when the Oversight Commission in the House was investigating this - they found more real evidence than our own law enforcement did and came so close to unlocking the whole thing. You want to see political scrambling - I saw the look of panic in their eyes as they were trying to desperately figure out how to pull the plug on that commission and look legitimate at the same time. 

 Throughout our entire conversation, my sources had to ensure that we were communicating through a private line, since their office phones and contacts are most certainly being monitored. At one point, they found evidence that someone else had broken into their office, home and computers looking for something but taking nothing - or nothing that they could determine anyway. 

My sources don’t trust the state police, which are investigating Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, who for a lack of oversight is getting all the spotlight from the media. 

Until now. 

The same sources then informed me that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been following up not just on Congressman David Cicilline and former Speaker Gordon Fox, but also Speaker Mattiello. My sources were even shown  a video of the current House Speaker  surrounded by RI's political and underworld elite - including a person known to the FBI as "the Ghost" - replete with  illicit activities occurring on a yacht in RI's nationally renowned Ocean State waters.

Gordon Fox

I had once written: “Rhode Island: Time to Call Batman”. Now is the time for superheroes to stop this superabundant criminality. The Ocean State needs a tsunami to clean out the Augean stable of corruption overrunning the entire region. Or has it become true, and Rhode Islanders just love this corruption too much to let it go, as another close source shared with me: 

You have no idea how pervasive the corruption is. Involves collusions between political officials of every stripe, judiciary, political hack Providence police commissioner, AND MEDIA!! Media reporters COVER UP known & proven political corruption! They are in bed w/the corrupt! Disgusting filth all of them. 

And then: 

But you do know Rhode Islanders LOVE THE CORRUPTION don't you? They are sickly "proud" of it! Keep voting the most proven corrupt politicians back into office time after time. Because THEY ALL "KNOW A GUY..." And that comes in handy getting patronage jobs, favors, squashing arrests, eats for them & their families. So you see CORRUPTION PAYS to most all Rhode Islanders! Insanity defined!! 

With 38 Studios, and reticent Rhode Islanders ashamed to talk about it, perhaps the residents in this state have had enough. Or will it take a total collapse, with bridges breaking down and killing people, along with a busted and bankrupted capital taking down every pension, public service, and bond holder? 

Nicholas Mattiello

Why not start at the top of the rot? Investigate Mattiello and Murphy, and pull the plug on the whole mad-cap game of corruption which has played Rhode Islanders for too long. Roger Williams would definitely approve.