Archive for Outrage and Rant
What Interests Does a Candidate Represent?
Posted by: | CommentsIn a discussion with an acquaintance the other day, she touched on the topic of politics and the importance of the Massachusetts race for US Senate. Granted it is interesting how a special election in the heart of Democrat country could see a Republican win and thus kill any attempts to pass a socialized medicine healthcare bill. Her comments illustrated a problem facing taxpayers in the state of Wisconsin. People will spend hours talking about national politics and vote in droves for the election of federal offices, but nary will a whisper be heard about local candidates.
Local spring elections barely draw enough voters to the polling place that would fill up a good size movie theater. Yet county, city and school district taxes are a sizeable chunk of a persons over all tax burdens. I recently attended a gathering of nearly 50 people at a private residence to hear a Congressional candidate speak. Imagine how many would show up to listen to a person running for school board or city council; maybe a handful.
Even though most yawn at the mention of local elections, an organization exists that is willing to put its money and manpower into candidates for local offices. Despite the economic hardships faced by many, local governments and school districts across Wisconsin have increased the tax burden over the last year. In the area where I live, both the county and the school district raised their portion of the property tax by nearly 9%.
Such actions have left many questioning the mindset of local elected officials. How can they vote to increase taxes in time like this and offer raises to government employees while at the same individuals are losing their jobs or their homes; why government does not suffer the same fate of the recession?
The answer may be found in the contents of an envelope going out to each of the candidates for the county board. The letter came from the offices of AFSCME, the government workers union. The opening sentence should send alarm bells to taxpayers about the true nature of local elections.
Dear Candidate for St. Croix Supervisor,
The AFSCME PEOPLE committee of the 3rd CD is considering endorsements for the Spring election of the ST. Croix County Board of Supervisors.
The committee decides locally who the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees will support in the upcoming election
The letter then invites the candidate to be part of an interview process beginning with an enclosed questionnaire.
As part of the candidate interview process, we have enclosed an AFSCME questionnaire.
The second page of the letter deals with personal information including email, phone numbers, and details of the candidates campaign treasury (where they can mail the checks).
On the next couple of pages the union asks eleven support/oppose questions. No surprise the first handful of inquiries dealt with opinions on collective bargaining and living wages. The next set dealt with the idea of privatization, Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), and increasing the tax burden on wealthy individuals and businesses. One curious question dealt with the time of board meetings. Currently St. Croix County Board meetings are held during the day time when many taxpayers are at work, and therefore, find it difficult to exercise their Constitutional right to address grievances toward government. It is highly doubtful that government union employees are concerned that those who pay their wages and benefits are shut out of the process.
I find this letter from AFSCME and others like it very disturbing on several fronts (WEAC sends out similar invitations to school board candidates). The founding principles of the republic established a hierarchy of power. The Creator endowed the individual with rights. Government was a creation of the people, and thus subservient to the citizenry. In layman terms, the people are the true employers of government workers.
The very strong implication of the peoples representative having to interview with government employees flips the hierarchy and the foundations of the country on its head. By submitting to an interview with the government union, a politician puts the government on equal or superior footing with its creator. Liberty cannot exist under such a system. Read More→
Carnac – St. Croix County’s Government Worst Nightmare
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Looks who’s back.
Hey You All in St. Croix County… I’m Back
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Yes, It’s true. I’ve returned to educate the citizens of St. Croix County about the unconstitutional underbelly of their local government. The government types have found it their privy to spend and raise hard working citizens taxes unconstitutionally (YOURS), when there are record numbers in foreclosures, property devaluation, layoffs, and unemployment.
Did you see your last property tax bill? The government’s ever increasing confiscation of citizen’s personal property via taxation (which most even don’t understand how they occur) infringe upon the rights of citizens to do what they want with their own property, their liberty at the expense of their socialistic ideal of the common good, and their mandate to fund socialistic ideals they may not agree with at the point of cohesion (jail via the tax code), is shining bright. Many of the government ilk are even raising their own salaries with NO input from you. In fact, it won’t even be allowed to be debated. They will easily be exposed. Stay tuned… I will reveal all.
Carnac on Resigning
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I may be giving away some of my secrets but check out the date of these news stories. Today is April 23rd. Read them all.
Where Is The Outrage!
Posted by: | CommentsThis is INCREDIBLE stuff on its face, even more incredible is the fact that there is no national outrage over this! Where are the people’s representatives? Call your congressman, call your Senator, Call you freekin mother! All you pin heads who were screaming about AIG executives getting bonus money after bailout funds were distributed need to wake up! That whole menagerie was just that – smoke and mirrors.
You want a real reason to be outraged – this is it!
Napolitano:
I was at a dinner last night (3/31/09) in Washington, D.C.. sitting next to me was a banker who was the Chair and CEO of one of the ten largest banking holding companies in the United States. They have $250 billion in assets, no bad debt of which they are aware, did not engage in credit default swaps, they have no sub-prime mortgages, and they dont need any government assistance.He informed me that the FDIC and The Treasury came to him and said if you dont issue a special class of stock just for us, which we can borrow, we will audit you publicly it will cost you millions in employee time and bad publicity and in lost business. Thats your choice.
Isnt that extortion?
This successful banker begged the federal government to let him run his bank. Begged his board of directors to let him tell the FDIC to go take a hike.
The board caved, they issued a special class of stock, Hank Paulson bought the special class of stock (2% of the company’s stock). That was September
Come March (knock, knock) Sheila Bair (FDIC head) comes knocking: we own 2% of your stock, and heres how you are going to structure your corporation
So, A, if this story is true, and I have no reason to believe it is not true, this is extortion. Which is, B, a crime, and C, we have a 2% share owner of non-voting stock now trying to control management.
Stossel: Is this the banker that gives out copies of Atlas Shrugged ? The charity that does that?
Napolitano: Yes.
Napolitano: John, you would have been very comfortable at this dinner party…
Stossel: Yes, I would have.
Gov. Doyle Seeks to Triple Background Check Fee!
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Please Contact Your Legislators Immediately!
In a disturbing move aimed at making gun ownership even more difficult and costly in the Badger State, Governor Jim Doyles (D) budget bill would raise the background check fee on handguns from $8 to $30. Governor Doyle is insisting that gun owners pay over three times more for a background check before they can exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Please respectfully urge your state legislators to oppose Governor Doyles unfair and unjust gun tax. Your State Senator can be reached by phone at (608) 266-2517. You can reach your State Representative at (608) 266-1501. To identify your legislators and to find more contact information, please click here.
We also encourage you to attend hearings on the budget by the Joint Finance Committee and express your opposition to any increase in the background check fee. There are two hearings scheduled for this week and three more scheduled for next week:
Wednesday, March 25 (10am to 4pm)
State Fair Park
Tommy G. Thompson Youth Center
Banquet Room #2
640 S. 84th Street
West Allis, WI 53214
Friday, March 27 (10am to 4pm)
University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire
Haas Fine Arts Center
Gantner Concert Hall
121 Water Street
Eau Claire, WI 54703
Monday, March 30 (10am to 4pm)
J.I. Case High School
Theater
7345 Washington Ave
Racine, WI 53406
Wednesday, April 1 (10am to 4pm)
Lawrence University
Stansbury Theater (Music Drama Center)
420 E. College Ave
Appleton, WI 54911
Friday, April 3 (10am to 4pm)
Amundson Community Center
Cambridge Municipal Building
200 Spring Street
Cambridge, WI 5352
Loose Trousers At Mustang Ranch
Posted by: | CommentsPeter Schiff writes:
Now that the Fed has recklessly shown its hand, the mad dash to get out of Treasuries and dollars should not be far off. The more the Fed prints to buy bonds the less the dollar is worth. Holders of our debt (read China and Japan) understand this dynamic. We must expect that they will not only refuse to buy new bonds, but they will look to unload those bonds they already own.
Under normal circumstances, if creditors grew concerned that inflation was eating into their returns, the Fed would raise interest rates to entice them to buy. However, the Fed will avoid this course of action as it fears higher rates are too heavy a burden for our debt-laden economy to bear. To maintain artificially low rates, the Fed will be forced to purchase trillions more debt then it expects as it becomes the only buyer in a sellers market.
Assuming you have read the full piece from which the above quote was taken, one could ask the question: Is Schiff alluding to Hemmingway? Hmmm, let’s follow this just for fun because, if the bell is tolling, as Schiff suggests, the question then becomes for whom? I love rhetorical riddles and this one really should sit for a spell before you reach your conclusion…
Schiff has been stunningly correct (but at times precisely incorrect in the short term) in his larger, longer, view of economic matters; when he speaks in terms of long term trends it would be wise to take him very seriously.
Being a student of George Reisman (pronounced rees-man), I see in Schiff much Reisman-esque thinking. Peter would wise to keep some of this to himself, however, lest he wish to face the fate of the Republicans who were persecuted after the rise of Francisco Franco… Who? What?
Too dramatic, you say?
Well, one should not be surprised to know that in most government schools Nazi Germany is a unit that is brought up totally out of context, eliminating, for all intents and purposes, the Spanish Civil War and its antecedents (particularly philosophical). Generally speaking, kids in government institutions being force-fed history do not get anywhere near the dose of context that is required to understand Hitler, the Nazis, and the gestalt of national socialism. But if you knew that the Spanish Civil war was a precursory or proxy for WWII, and you knew the philosophical fronts of the battles, would you not understand Nazism in a, well, actual way? Of course you would.
Of course, one of the primary reasons for the omission of the basis is more often than not that the institution itself and its education degreed automatons don’t understand the philosophical battles that were brewing, where those battles came from, either – at the end of the day they have a unit to present, and a fixed period of time to present it.. Pragmatism rules the government schools.
Similarly, in today’s analysis of economic matters people in general do not get any context in which government intervention is taking place. Schiff, however, is the antidote to much of this and is generally an inoculation to such context swapping and context blanking that is so obvious to some of us on the outside looking in.
Time will tell, but Peter’s rhetorical question at the end of his piece is loaded: “Got Gold?”
Well, yes. I do… nowhere near as much as I wish I had.
So, let me leave you with this thought: If you knew today that the price of gold will likely double in 12 to 18 months, and the value of the dollar would drop like a pair of loose trousers at the Mustang Ranch over the noon hour, what would you do?
More Police Gone Bad
Posted by: | CommentsToday’s Revolutionary Minute
Posted by: | CommentsYou cannot legislate the poor into wealth and freedom by legislating the rich out of wealth and freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving anything. Remember, the government cannot give to anybody anything the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they worked for, that my dear friend is about the end of any nation.
Now We Know What Happened and How!
Posted by: | CommentsWhere’s the Money? The 2 Trillion!
Posted by: | CommentsDec. 12 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
This is not news. They’ve been doing this for quite some time. We have the Fed, an unconstitutional and unelected board, pulling the financial strings of the country with the power to print fiat money. And they won’t tell us were our tax money is going!
See Fed Refuses to Disclose Recipients of $2 Trillion in Lending