Category: Politics

Many Conservatives claim to be men and women of principle until those principles have more of a cost than they are willing to pay. Many of these Conservatives are running for the tall grass because Arizona passed a state law that mirrors existing Federal law on immigration. Pundits and candidates alike are denouncing the law because it is ill timed (so when is a good time?) and changes the national debate from overspending and Obamacare to the wedge issue of immigration. Hey we all knew months ago that Obama would be moving to immigration to try and divide Republicans.

Arizona pointed out that the emperor has no clothes and the Republicans panic. Why? Arizona is right. Yes immigration should be a federal issue but where does the national government get its power? From the States. Who has to bear the cost of illegal immigration? The States. When the national government fails to do its job, who gets to pick-up the slack? The States.

Michael Savage is right that it is borders, language and culture. Americans want secure borders. Neither political party has the will to do what needs to be done. Arizona is tired of people being murdered, criminals running roughshod over their people and the national government protecting the law breakers.

The irony is that California will be worse than Arizona in terms of lawlessness and crime due to the fiscal mismanagement of the state within the next couple of years. Under court order, releasing over 40,000 criminals into our society combined with counties abolishing law enforcement presence in unincorporated areas will create an explosion of crime that will rock the state to its core.

Radio talk show host and almost State Assembly candidate—Eric Hogue—finds the Arizona law ill advised and feels that such a move gives the Democrats a reason to energize their troops. He also sees immigration as a wedge issue to divide Republicans. “Just when we were focused on Obamacare, deficit spending, the economy and an ideology of socialistic intent, we are drug back into a wedge issue that has Democrats unified and Republicans stupidified.” http://hoguenews.com/?p=9886#comment-4783

Hogue’s three points outlining why the Arizona law is wrong can be summarized as:
• Immigration is a Federal issue
• Arizona is violating the 4th Amendment
“When they are forced to produce papers regarding their citizenship their rights are violated with an illegal search and seizure.”
• Illegal immigration is not a state crime
“The new law imposes criminal penalties for conduct – being in the state illegally – this is not a federal crime; being found to be in the country without proper documentation isn’t categorized as a criminal offense. It is a violation of immigration law and grounds for deportation.”
I agree with Hogue that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will overturn the law but that means little since the 9th Circuit is the most overturned court in the nation.

Let’s look at Hogue’s arguments in a different context. I can take every argument that Hogue made about opposing the Arizona law on immigration and apply the same three points to opposing the George Runner sponsored initiative that voters must show ID to vote in California.
• Voting is a Federal issue.
• Voters showing ID violates the 4th Amendment.
• Voting is not a crime, preventing voting is.

Why is illegals showing ID bad but voters showing ID good? Due to the way the Federal Courts have applied the Bill of Rights to the States via their interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause, what’s good for one is good for the other. Either showing ID is OK or it is not. The Liberals are consistent in their arguments but many Republicans are not.

Republicans should stand for what is right. They should not be ashamed of people wanting to have their families, homes and jobs protected from the burden of illegal immigration.

Will it really have to take an illegal bringing a suitcase nuke over the border and using it in a heavily populated Liberal area like Los Angeles or San Francisco to get the national government to take their job seriously?

Arizona may not be able to stop illegal immigration but that doesn’t mean the law abiding taxpayers that live there must pickup all the slack of the federal government.

I woke up this morning to this headline from Associated Press “American Taxes Lower, Despite Anti-Tax Rhetoric.” Thankfully I had not had breakfast yet or I would have barfed. My first thought is what planet are these guys living on but then I remembered that the media is in bed with President Obama. This headline is the biggest bunch of crap I have seen since Barry signed the nationalized healthcare bill. We are paying lower taxes? No “F”ing way!

Americans have never been taxed as much as they are right now. The best that most politicians can say is” Yeah but look what we let them keep.” I made 11K less than the previous year and paid MORE in income taxes by almost $1,000. AP thinks I should be grateful? “Kiss my grits you fascist pigs” And this does not include all the other taxes, fees, and mandated stuff I have to pay that is going up every year due to more government regulations and interference with private business. Then there are all the costs passed down from the government regulating other folks.

Here in California, my vehicle fees have doubled; the child deduction has been cut for $309 each to $99; the State pension fund is upside-down by 500 billion dollars and the city and county retirement funds are just as bad; businesses are dying; and unemployment is really closer to 25% not the 12.5% that is reported in the media.

Our economy is in worse shape than the Great Depression. The cause is not the businesses of America but the government of America. We used to think “taxation without representation” was bad but now we are worse off under taxation with bad representation. President Obama and likeminded politicians are cooking the books in ways that Enron could never have imagined. The difference is that they are the ones wielding the sword and they are so arrogant that they think no one is holding them accountable.

Every elected official take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. Unfortunately for our people, the politicians in many cases are the domestic enemies of the nation. Thank God that many people are waking up to this threat. I’m happy to join with like minded people that love our country and want government restored to its rightful boundaries. We need to restore fiscal accountability, reduce the scope and reach of government and lower the regulatory and tax burden on our people. That is why I will see you at the Tea Party today to send a message that we have had enough.

The 2010 Tea Party in Sacramento was smaller than last year. The crowd seemed older and less enthusiastic. The worst aspect of the gathering was the sound system. The audio had so much echo that it was unintelligible from the sides and hard to understand when in front of the stage. In four hours of attending the program, I never heard a single speaker. Only fragments could be understood.

It was nice to see many political folks that I know both past and present.

Signs were varied and most were homemade. Several had spelling errors that were unintentional. Some signs were clever. I wrote down a few examples of signs at the event.

Please don’t tell Obama what comes after a trillion.

November Cometh.

You can’t fix stupid, but you can vote it out of office.

Taxed Enough Already.

2010 end of an error.

Term Limits: change we can believe in.

My biggest complaint about the Tea Party is the seeming lack of focus and direction. My imaginary conversation with the Tea Party would go like this:
Me: OK, we don’t like taxes but what will we do?
TP: Vote.
ME: Good, but what else?
TP: Organize.
ME: To do what?
TP (Awkward silence followed by clearing throat): …

At Tea Parties you will hear that incumbents are bad, Republicans aren’t any better, let’s get back to the Constitution; however, at the end of the day the Tea Party mandate gets fuzzy.

Two domestic enemies of the US Constitution threw in the towel today. Congressman Bart Stupak (above), a distant relative of Judas Iscariot, and US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced they were retiring at the end of their respective terms.

There is real hope that Stupak will be replaced by someone of better principles. Justice Stevens will likely be replaced by someone with more disdain for our republic and way of life.  Hopefully, many more will follow Stupak “into that good night.”

The State Controller’s Office (SCO) is once again delaying cash reimbursements to State employees for travel expenses. Whether this is a software issue or a result of budget shortfalls is not known. This is in addition to the spending freeze that is in place in parts of the government.

The CalATERS (California Automated Travel Expense Reimbursement System) program used by the Dept of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been down frequently for over six weeks now. The amount of man-hours wasted by users trying to make use of this program is incredible. Its failure is approaching that of the DMV boondoggle of several years ago and thus far the media has not gotten wind of this problem.  SCO has responded with mass approvals and deletions of unaudited claims but the problems still persists.

I can’t wait until Meg Whitman or Steve Poizner gets their hands on the waste, fraud and abuse of systems like CalATERS. This system is so contrary to GAAP that it should never have gone live; let alone been rolled-out for use by agencies of State government.

Here are some shortcomings of the program.
• CalATERS cannot check for duplicate claims for the same trip or expenses.
• Approvers do not have to be immediate supervisors or even in the chain of command for employees.
• Receipts are not required for reimbursement of many transactions.
• There is no procedure to report waste, fraud or abuse of expenses charged directly to the State.
• Auditors have no written policies or uniform standards and training to audit claims.
• Due to system shortcomings, archive data further back than about three months cannot be pulled-up on the computers of auditors. Detailed claim history should be available for at least three fiscal years including the current one.
• Since multiple Regional Accounting Offices (RAOs) are pooled together, there are no clear cut delineations of which employee reports to a particular RAO.

Today, the powers that be decreed that any claims for travel reimbursement in the Department of Corrections—that were submitted within a certain period of time—will be approved with no verification.  Unless a CalATERS claim fails the “smell test” of an auditor the claim will be approved and any supporting documents will be audited at a later date. This is supposed to be implemented on a department-wide basis.

This initiative seems to originate from the State Controller’s Office as a way to fix the fact that the CalATERS program cannot handle the load or number of users from CDCR. The number of man-hours wasted on this program would likely pay for one that could do the job.

Meanwhile the “hard freeze” on travel is still in effect.

Update 02-24-2010 free pass period seems to be primarily for January 2010. Per email today goal is shedding 3,000 claims ASAP to reduce load on system.
This seems like a Band-Aid for systemic program design failure.

“Schwarzenegger says last year’s $862 billion stimulus plan is “terrific” and has created 150,000 jobs in his state…”—AP 2/21/2010

Hey Arnold, the stimulus bill has created no new jobs in the private sector in California and we all know it. If you really want to create jobs in California, turn on the water to the Central Valley farmers and tell the federal judge to go pound sand.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is implementing a hard freeze on spending as a temporary step to address a significant anticipated fiscal shortfall. The following areas are immediately frozen:
• Hiring
• Training
• Travel
• Contracts for discretionary services
• Purchases
• Overtime for Administration

“The hard freeze will remain in effect until such time as the Department is able to prioritize and then establish a system for authorizing expenditures.”

Union front groups have started running ads against Meg Whitman because she is being supported by big business and she opposes global warming.

The unions have 40 million to spend tampering with the Republican primary and their two biggest complaints about Meg are those! If that is their best shot, then Meg has little to fear from the Left. What a waste of money. Any business that supports a Democrat deserves to fail. Any rational person that supports AB 32 should not be allowed to vote because their IQ is negative.

The union motto should be Democrats: same old playbook, same old politicians, same old results.

Ok who is older? Jerry Brown or Robert Byrd