The President found himself in a kerfuffle when he suggested the Muslim leaders wishing to build a mosque within 2 blocks of Ground Zero should be allowed to do so.

The Muslim's want to build the Mosque to promote "understanding and friendship" with the non-muslim community.  President Obama contends that in a free society like ours, we shouldn't be able to prohibit such an intent.  I'm calling "HOGWASH" on both of them.

For the President, he might be reminded that we continually turn away "inappropriate" activities for the greater public good.  In most communities, liquor stores can't be located next to schools.  Similarly, we restrict many locations from having adult entertainment.  We put these restrictions in place for a whole host of reasons.  Primarily we've had to enact the restrictions for what I call the "stupid rule".  Unfortunately, some adult entertainment purveyors acted "stupidly", at one time or another, and opened an inappropriate establishment next to a school.  As a result, communities enacted rules to avoid future stupidity.

Building a muslim mosque at the site of the World Trade Center is "Stupid".  It lacks sensitivity to those whose lives were taken, and the surviving families(whose lives will never be the same).  That type of stupidity is not the mark of a caring faith, but of a callous one. 

I loved the commentator who suggested he would open a gay bar and strip club next door to the mosque.  Because Muslim's hate homosexuality, drinking and nudity, the commentator felt building such an establishment next door to the Muslim house of worship would help provide a chance for Muslim's to gain and "understanding and friendship" towards homosexuals, drunks and nudists! 

Shirley Sherrod has fallen off the radar. NOW we know why:

(thanks to Dave R. for the tip)

Everyone who felt pity for Shirley Sherrod being dealt a bad hand, think
again...

This story doesn't seem to have made the media - yet!

Andrew Breitbart is a media genius.   

He proved it originally with his brilliant handling of the ACORN 'hooker'
scandal which he skillfully manipulated so that the corrupt media was
forced, against its will, to broadcast corruption in one of Obama's most
powerful political support groups.  But Breitbart's handing of that affair
is nothing compared to his brilliant manipulation of the Shirley Sherrod
'white farmer' scandal. 

It all began last Monday, July 22, 2010.  As the country watched in horror,
Breitbart released a snippet of a tape on his "Big Government" site which
showed an obscure black female official of the Dept. of Agriculture laughing
to a roomful of NAACP members about how she'd discriminated against a
destitute white farmer and refused to give him the financial aid he
desperately needed.  As she smirked to the room, she'd sent him instead to a
white lawyer - 'one of his own kind' - for help.  The black woman was
Shirley Sherrod - and almost immediately she became the center of a
firestorm of controversy which exploded throughout the country.  Within a
day of the release of that infamous tape, the head of the Dept. of
Agriculture, spurred on by Obama, demanded - and received - Sherrod's
resignation.  Breitbart had won.

But then seemingly Breitbart's actions began to explode in his face.  As
Sherrod screamed in protest, FOX News released the entire text of her speech
last March to the NAACP.  And there on tape Sherrod was shown supposedly
repenting of her racism against a white farmer and instead championing his
fight to win funds to keep his farm afloat.  Within hours of that entire
tape being revealed, the entire world turned against Andrew Breitbart.
Conservatives throughout the country were enraged that he'd endangered their
reputations by releasing a 'doctored' tape.  Breitbart, they thundered, had
dealt a fatal blow to the conservative media.  I confess that I also was
horrified at what I saw as the clumsiness and stupidity of Breitbart in
'doctoring' a tape to make a supposedly innocent woman look guilty.  But now
I discover I have been as guilty of haste to judgment of Breitbart as the
Dept. of Agriculture was of Ms. Sherrod. 

Only now am I realizing the real purpose for Breitbart's release of that
tape snippet.  It was to allow him to cunningly trick the media into
exposing one of the most shocking examples of corruption in the federal
government - a little known legal case called "Pigford v. Glickman".

(Read about it here.)

"In 1997, 400 African-American farmers sued the United States Department of
Agriculture, alleging that they had been unfairly denied USDA loans due to
racial discrimination during the period 1983 to 1997."  The case was
entitled "Pigford v. Glickman" and in 1999, the black farmers won their
case.  The government agreed to pay each of them as much as $50,000 to
settle their claims. 

But then on February 23 of this year, something shocking happened in
relation to that original judgment.  In total silence, the USDA agreed to
release more funds to "Pigford".  The amount was a staggering $1.25 billion.
This was because the original number of plaintiffs - 400 black farmers - had
now swollen in a class action suit to include a total of 86,000 black
farmers throughout America.

There was only one teensy problem.  The United States of America doesn't
have 86,000 black farmers.  According to accurate and totally verified
census data, the total number of black farmers throughout America is only
39,697.  Oops.   

Well, gosh - how on earth did 39,697 explode into 86,000 claims?  And how
did $50,000 explode into $1.25 billion?  Well, folks, you'll just have to
ask the woman who not only spearheaded this case because of her position in
1997 at the "Rural Development Leadership Network" but whose family received
the highest single payout (approximately $13 million) from that action -
Shirley Sherrod.
<http://beforeitsnews.com/story/110/024/Is_There_More_to_Sherrods_Dismissal.
html> Oops again.

Yes, folks.  It appears that Ms. Sherrod had just unwittingly exposed
herself as the perpetrator of one of the biggest fraud claims in the United
States - a fraud enabled solely because she screamed racism at the
government and cowed them into submission.  And it gets even more
interesting.  Ms. Sherrod has also exposed the person who aided and abetted
her in this race fraud.  As it turns out, the original judgment of "Pigford
v. Glickman" in 1999 only applied to a total of 16,000 black farmers.  But
in 2008, a junior Senator got a law passed to reopen the case and allow more
black farmers to sue for funds.  The Senator was Barack Obama.

Because this law was passed in dead silence and because the woman
responsible for spearheading it was an obscure USDA official, American
taxpayers did not realize that they had just been forced in the midst of a
worldwide depression to pay out more than $1.25 billion to settle a race
claim.

But Breitbart knew.  And last Monday, July 22, 2010, he cleverly laid a trap
which Sherrod - and Obama - stumbled headfirst into which has now resulted
in the entire world discovering the existence of this corrupt financial
judgment.  Yes, folks - Breitbart is a genius.

As for Ms. Sherrod? Well, she's discovered too late that her cry of 'racism'
to the media which was intended to throw the spotlight on Breitbart has
instead thrown that spotlight on herself - and her corruption.   Sherrod has
vanished from public view.   Her 'pigs', it seems, have come home to roost.
Oink!

Imagine you own a business.  And through that business you employed more than a thousand people.

Old Joe had been employed with you for 20 years.  And, under your company policy, Joe was entitled to receive a pension from you, which equalled 80% of his last paycheck. 

Now imagine that at Joe's retirement party you found out that Joe's immediate manager, also your employee, had allowed Joe to work as many as 40 hours a week of overtime so that his pay could be wildly inflated for his final year, and that his pension benefits were more than twice what he would have been entitled to.

What would you do?

        First, you'd likely close the loophole immediately.
        Second, you'd probably fire Joe's manager for being so negligent.

Well the taxpayers of Illinois are facing the same situation.  "Public Servants" are allowed to wildly inflate their final two years of compensation so that their lifetime pension benefits are more than double what they would be entitled to!

    Are we closing any loopholes?  Nope
     Are we dismissing the supervisors that allow this to happen?  No, as well.

It's probably time Illinois voters took this matter into their own hands.

Leaders in Springfield have told me, "well, you can't change the pensions that are being paid, or promised, as it goes against the Illinois constitution".  In fact, this was one of the reasons that so many unions were actively campaigning AGAINST an Illinois Constitutional Convention in 2008- because they didn't want this provision to be removed from the constitution. 

So what are we to do?   Here are three possible solutions -

    1. The angry plaintiff - A lawyer friend offered this terrific solution.  Any voter, in the state of Illinois, (or a whole class, for that matter) could bring a lawsuit against any and all state agencies AND THEIR DIRECTORS, that allowed employees to knowingly and willfully pad their pension.  This is a clear dereliction of duty by the immediate supervisor and agency director.  A lawsuit to recover those funds would wake up those directors and managers, while bringing media attention to their fraudulent activities.

    2. Who want's to be the new Attorney General?  -  Steve Kim is an attorney running for the Illinois Attorney General position.  His is an admirable quest, as he's running against Lisa Madigan (one of the top voter getters in the state).  Mr. Kim would make state headlines, and garner plenty of support, if he announced his intention to bring charges against those individuals that perpetrated the pension padding in the state of Illinois.  Making that the sole issue of his campaign would provide a focus of: public corruption and the need for pension reform.  Lisa Madigan could be vulnerable on the issue for letting things proliferate on her watch.

    3. Let's bring it to the voters - It's a tough road, but not impossible.  The voters of Illinois can change the constitutional provision which prohibits the state legislators from touching pension payments.  However, with enough petition signatures, the issue can be put before the voters.  I'm confident of the outcome.  Here's a suggestion - Given the state of financial decay in the state, once we remove the constitutional hindrance, let's prohibit any state employee from receiving more than $100,000 in pension benefits from the state.  It's an amount that would keep most retirees in good financial shape, while eliminating the ones that padded their retirement.  

    Those are my ideas......what are yours?

It's happening across the country.  People are slowly waking up to the fact that our "trusted" political leaders are anything but. 
While claiming to be working for our interests, the politicians are unabashedly stealing money from the public in the form of outrageous pensions and hyper-inflated salaries.......all in the name of "public service".

    Just today - 
        
            Quinn gives raises, an average of 11% increases, to 235 of his employees .  
    
      In the article, Quinn states that the employees are "entitled" because he's asking them to "do more with less".  Giving an 11% increase in these economic times, when most wages are staying stagnant, doesn't really strike me as having "less".  Of course, the higher wages, will necessarily increase the size of the golden parachute these employees will also enjoy.
        
    From California: 
    Remember last weeks story about the city manager in Bell California (population 37,000)?  He was earning $787,000 in his position.  Citizens were rightfully outraged.  Now that they've uncovered the atrocity, more details have come to light, including the fact that:
        - The police chief was earning $450,000 per year
        - The assistant city manager was earning $376,000 per year
        - And the 4 of 5 city council members were receiving as much as $100,000 per year for their part time positions!  (They've since reduced their compensation down to $8,000 per year).  How generous of them! 


The outrage is growing.  In the next edition, I'll offer some ideas on how this train wreck of a public compensation and pension system might be put back on track. 

On Tuesday, Missouri held their primary election.  On the ballot was Proposition C - an initiative to have Missouri opt out of Obamacare.  You're not going to like the results of the vote...........if you are Obama.

Opting out of Obamacare was the choice of more than 73% of the voters!!!
That is a huge number!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Update:  While many commentators will say that this is just an indication of Missouri as a purely Republican state, it's important to realize that Barack Obama only lost this state by 3,000 votes (49.7% McCain to 49.3% Obama) in 2008.  In short, it would appear that nearly 50% of Obama's base has voted against his signature legislation.  That has to be troubling to the White House. 

In the summer of 2009, Congressional Representatives returned to their home districts to find outraged voters. 
It got so bad, that some started canceling their town hall meetings. 
Thinking the anger would subside, they returned to DC in the fall and continued with their spending spree.

It's time to face the music, once again.  And, judging from this video , of a 2010 Town Hall meeting in California, the outrage continues.

The video is of 37 year Congressman Pete Stark of California.  It's worth watching all three minutes.  

On July 19th, President Obama held a Rose Garden event to plead for the extension of unemployment benefits.  He brought forth three unemployed individuals whose benefits were about to run out. 

Meet Lesle Macko, one of the three introduced by Obama.  Obama told her sob story.

"We need to extend unemployment compensation benefits for women like Leslie Macko, who lost her job at a fitness center last year, and has been looking for work ever since. Because she’s eligible for only a few more weeks of unemployment, she’s doing what she never thought she’d have to do. Not at this point, anyway. She’s turning to her father for financial support,” Obama said in his speech.

Guess what?  Here's the rest of the story on Ms. Macko. 

In 2009, Macko was convicted of prescription drug fraud, at which point she lost her job as an esthetician in the spa at ACAC.However, on July 19, Macko was seen standing next to President Barack Obama as his example of the needs to extend jobless benefits.

The White House, having "fully vetted" Ms. Macko had this convicted drug felon standing next to the President on the White House lawn.

Did you see this story on any where else? Our country is in the very best of hands.........

From 1982 - 1993, Thursday evening TV included the "must see" TV show, "Cheers".  
Do you remember the lyrics from the theme song? 

                    "Where everybody knows your name, 
                    and they're always glad you came. 
                    You wanna be where you can see, 
                    our troubles are all the same 
                    You wanna be where everybody knows 
                    Your name."
 
Imagine living in such a world!  Well now you can.  It's not found in Boston, but 442 miles further west - Washington, DC.

Former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel has been found to have violated a host of federal and state rules, including:
        1. Failure to pay income tax for more than a decade on income from his Dominican Republic condo.
        2. Accepting FOUR rent controlled apartments from a NY developer.  Created to keep housing costs in check, rent controlled apartments are limited to ONE per person.  Rangel had FOUR!
        3. The sudden appearance of previously undisclosed assets on his financial reports
        4. Improper solicitation of funds from his Congressional Office.

  And, these are just the items that the NY media has uncovered!  His actions include the violation of both state and federal law.  (I would suspect city of NY laws were broken, as well) Most violations were discovered more than 2 years ago. And in 24 months, no criminal charges have been brought against the Harlem Democrat.

    Now, Congressman Rangel is "negotiating" with the House Ethics committee on these charges.  There's a chance he'll only get a reprimand from the committee and keep his seat.  And the charges will never be revealed to the public. 

    WOW!! Wouldn't you love to work for such an employer?  A place where you can violate all kinds of laws, the charges are kept under wraps, and you can "negotiate" what information might be released!!  

    We should be outraged that this is what DC has become - a place where rules are violated without consequence.  And if you are caught - you get to negotiate your way out - without the charges being revealed.  

                    You wanna be where you can see, 
                    our troubles are all the same 
                    You wanna be where everybody knows 
                    Your name.

Lots of stuff going on out there.

This is very scary - The latest financial bill exempts the SEC from complying with freedom of information act requests.  

Jeff Threadgold is a leading economist.  He offers a great recap of all the other nations that have succeeded with their own form of Obamacare.  

Finally, for every day of the Blago trial, freelance journalist, Susan Berger provided up-to-the-minute tweets from inside the courtroom.  Since June, she's been getting up at 4 am to secure a seat.  Her efforts were incredible.  Here's her recap of the trial .  It's worth reading.    

Her name was all over the news last week.  The release of a partial video of Shirley Sherrod speaking at an NAACP meeting turned into a "he said", "she said" moment. 

The White House issued orders that the woman be fired, blaming it all on Fox News, who had yet to report the story.  It's all been debated ad nauseam.

Even the Sunday morning talk shows were discussing the issue.  But across all the channels; all the talking heads and the myriad of guests on the topic - one person was conspicuously absent - Shirley Sherrod.  Not one network opted to have her on to speak about her experience.

Held up as the modern day Rosa Parks on Thursday - Shirley Sherrod has been denied airtime by the major networks by Saturday.  Of course, her newest bitter racial statements didn't help.  Within 48 hours, this bastion of racial virtue has suddenly been shuffled off, stage left.   She can console herself by talking to Cindy Sheehan, perhaps.

..................Speaking of Cindy Sheehan, it's interesting that all the media, that so hounded George Bush for the access to photograph the coffins of the war dead - have suddenly gone silent.  The media suddenly aren't interested in publishing those photos, that were so critical to our freedom of press when Bush was in office.