Category: Guest Authors

State Worker Pensions Extreme In Pa.

By Sen. Scott Wagner State Worker Pensions Extreme In Pa.

Beginning on Monday, March 16 and concluding yesterday, April 2, the Senate Appropriations committee held 35 hearings at which time each state department acting secretary testified to the committee as to their specific department budget for the 2015-2016 year.

Sen. Pat Browne from Lehigh County is the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Sen. Browne is a certified public accountant and attorney. He also was a tax manager for Coopers and Lybrand from 1990 to 1994 and a tax supervisor for Price Waterhouse from 1986 to 1990.

I would like to point out that I am impressed with Sen. Browne’s leadership on the Appropriations Committee, his level of expertise in tax matters, his knowledge of the law as it relates to the budget and his knowledge of the Pennsylvania budget.

I am also honored to be working with other senate members who have spent a great deal of time and effort getting a grasp on Governor Wolf’s breathtaking budget.

The committee hearings were very informative and went into great depth of each department.

The area that I find most troubling is the excessive cost of benefits for state employees.

In the private sector world the percentage of benefits over and above an employee’s annual compensation would rarely ever exceed 50 percent and in most private sector industries the percentage is closer to 40 percent.

The documents show the largest driver of the benefits are health care and pension costs – they are wildly out of control.

For example, the Department of Corrections benefits are in the range of 73.5 percent to 79.3 percent over the annual compensation of each employee.

The average corrections worker makes approximately $55,911 annually – add on 73.5 percent for benefits for a grand total cost per corrections employee of $97,005 annually – the benefit cost is a staggering $41,095 per employee.

Using the private sector benefit factor of 50 percent on a corrections employee’s annual compensation of $55,911 annually the benefit cost would be $27,955 per year instead of $41,095 – a reduction of $13,949 per corrections employee.

The Department of Corrections has 14,770 employees – multiply 14,770 employees times $13,949 per employee and the Department of Corrections is paying at least $206 million dollars more in benefits than the private sector using a 50 percent benefit factor.

If I used a 40 percent benefit factor instead of 50 percent the state is paying $276 million dollars more than the private sector just for the Department of Corrections.

The Department of Corrections is only one department and the silent creeping of benefit costs for PA state employees is why we are financially where we are today.

Include all departments in the state and PA is clearly paying in excess of $1 billion dollars annually more than the private sector and has been creeping up for years – this year just happens to be the year to pay up.

I will continue to send any pertinent budget information to you all as we get closer to the June 30  budget deadline.

My prediction is that we will not meet the June 30  budget deadline and it is going to be a long, hot summer in Harrisburg.

At this link are documents that detail the state departments benefit rates.

Sen. Wagner represents the 28th Pennsylvania Senate District.

State Worker Pensions Extreme In Pa.

Tears Shed For Villanova

Tears Shed For Villanova
By Chris Freind

Dear North Carolina State:

Really? Did you really have to rip our hearts out by beating our Number One seed Villanova?

Congratulations. We hope you’re proud. You single-handedly kicked eight million Philadelphia sports fans in the teeth, sending us right back into our perpetual state of depression. We may be one of the nation’s biggest cities, but somehow, we are dead last in championships.

Sixers? Horrendous. Twenty-two years since their last title. And for good measure, the franchise owns the NBA record for fewest wins in a season. Flyers? Do we even have a hockey team anymore? (Gerry Ford was President the last time we won the Stanley Cup). Phils? Most losses of any team, in any sport, in American history (over 10,000). And our beloved Iggles? Always close, but zero Super Bowl trophies.

Our last true hope was Villanova. Sure, they made history once before as a Cinderella, but this was a powerhouse team. This time it would be different. This was the year that would finally be ours, with the dynamic Wildcats surely advancing to the Championship game, then knocking off those other Wildcats. It was so close, almost in our grasp.
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But instead, you just made ‘Nova coach Jay Wright the next Andy Reid. Great regular season leader, but underachiever when it counts most. And so our mammoth inferiority complex continues. So thanks —- and maybe we’ll see you next year, when our Groundhog Day in the NCAA’s will no doubt continue.

Yours in Suffering,

Philadelphia

****

March Madness.

It is, without a doubt, the best sporting event on the planet.

Sure, the Olympics stoke nationalistic fervor, and Americans sometimes excel in sports where they aren’t favored (who can forget the Miracle on Ice?), but America is virtually never the underdog, because we almost always lead the world in the medal count.

And stop right there. No, the World Cup absolutely, positively, cannot compare. First, soccer isn’t a sport; it’s a recreational activity. Second, enough with the theatrics of players writhing on the turf for ten minutes because they injured a nail. Third, what’s up with that running clock and the fact that we really don’t know when the game will end? Even worse is the offsides rule, which kills the .001 percent excitement level in professional soccer by stifling aggressiveness and encouraging pansy play. A rule, by the way, that virtually no American understands.

Finally, can we just admit that all those “cards” —- which come in more colors than the Homeland Security threat-level chart —- are really dumb? Refs don’t warn basketball players not to hack a guy after the fact. They actually call the foul. A simple concept, yet one lost on the soccer fanatics.

But the NCAA Tournament is different, in so many ways. And when it comes our way each spring, some miraculous things occur throughout America.

March Madness teaches us that anything can happen, and that miracles do occur. Its lesson that sportsmanship, confidence, and work ethic can achieve the impossible are timeless for young and old alike.

On game days, very little work gets done. And you know what? That’s okay, even with most bosses. Americans work harder than anyone else on earth. Hell, we’re still being productive while the Europeans are taking a siesta —- from their earlier siesta. If there was ever something to which we can legitimately feel “entitled,” it’s taking a little time to watch the tournament together.

And that is the most important thing: being together. For a few short weeks, Americans suddenly become blind to our prejudices. Political partisanship and the management-labor caste go out the window. The only colors we care about are those worn by our favorite teams.

No longer do we see ourselves, and each other, as black and white, male and female, liberal and conservative. Instead, we become friends, neighbors, and countrymen, all side-by-side, cheering in unity. In lunchrooms, bars, and cubicles, even crowded around cellphones, we huddle. Screaming. Smiling. And sometimes even crying.

We come together to cheer for our teams —- some of whom we’ve never heard of, hailing from places we don’t know —- watching breathlessly as a Number 14 seed comes agonizingly close to slaying a giant.

We experience the unbelievable moments, sometimes forgetting to breathe, as seniors —-some destined for the NBA, but most for an “ordinary” life —- play their hearts out, knowing that one misstep will end their collegiate career. And just as often, we see 18-year-old freshmen step to the foul line with the game literally in their hands, as an entire nation —- including the President of the United States —- watches.

And alma maters and home teams notwithstanding, the vast majority of Americans always pull for the underdogs, the teams that the “experts” don’t give a snowball’s chance in hell to win. Yet year after year, many find a way to knock out Goliath. We find this endearing not just because it’s fun, but because it personifies who we are as Americans.

From our very beginnings, the odds have always been stacked against us:

-Defeat the British, merely the most powerful nation the world had even known? Dream on. But we did, making the dream of liberty and freedom a reality, on an unprecedented scale, for hundreds of millions.

-Win the Civil War? Forget it. Even if Lincoln’s army prevailed, the defeated South’s resentment would never subside, and its people would never, could never, assimilate into a northern-dominated America. If Vegas had odds, it would have been a sure bet that the tattered Union would not prevail. But it did.

-Save the world from the tyranny of the Axis Powers? With an under-equipped army and industrial base not suited for defense production? Not for decades could victory be expected. And to engineer a weapon so awesome that it could end the war after just one or two uses? Forget about it. And yet, the Greatest Generation not only accomplished those things, but provided the blueprint for America’s postwar mega-boom.

-Put a man on the moon? Save the Apollo 13 astronauts? Beat the Soviet Union and defeat communism? End segregation? Elect a black man to the presidency? The list goes on.

And yet despite America’s track record of beating the odds, the naysayers are still out in full force, predicting gloom and doom. Maybe they’re right this time. Maybe America really is in its twilight, as the country’s seemingly insurmountable problems —- and the politicians’ inability to solve them in a civil manner —- attests.

Maybe.

But no matter how many times America has fallen, and how often its back has been to the wall, it has always —- always —- prevailed. For the record, my money’s on the world’s biggest underdog coming through in the clutch once again, turning it on when it has to, and finishing the game stronger than anyone else. It’s what we’ve always done, and it’s what we must do now.

And why? Because that’s what a true champion does.

Now back to my bracket….

Tears Shed For Villanova

Unions Losing Because Of Greed, Corruption

Unions Losing Because Of Greed, Corruption
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker

By Stephen Moore

My first job as a teenager back in 1976 was working as a blue-suited Andy Frain usher at sporting events at places like Wrigley Field in Chicago. When I took the job, I was required to join the local union and pay dues. My co-workers and I used to endlessly complain that the union was snatching money from our paychecks even though we were only paid the minimum wage. “What has this union ever done for us?” we all raged.

I think about that unpleasant experience a lot in the context of the debate raging in a handful of states over whether to adopt right-to-work legislation.  Wisconsin  become the 25th state with a right-to-work law on March 9 when Gov. Scott Walker signs a bill passed by the State Assembly three days earlier.  It joins Michigan and Indiana as recent Midwestern, blue-collar states that have adopted this employee rights law.

Unions and the think tanks they fund are in an understandable panic. History shows that when workers aren’t forced to pay union dues and fees, they usually choose not to.

A right-to-work law does not prohibit unions. There are active, powerful unions in right-to-work states. This law simply gives individual workers the freedom to choose whether to financially support a union as a job condition.

Earlier this week, Jared Bernstein of the big labor-backed Center on Budget and Policy Priorities made the bizarre argument in The Washington Post that “there’s no such thing” as “forced unionism” today in America.

He further accused me of lying, writing: “Steve Moore of the Heritage Foundation claims that workers in non-RTW states ‘can be compelled to join a union and pay dues at a union shop whether they wish to or not’ or that they ‘can even be forced to pay union dues for partisan political activities with which they don’t agree.’”

Wow, who is twisting facts here? Bernstein’s claim has a small grain of truth: Workers can no longer be forced to formally join a union in America after the Supreme Court decided in 1963 that was just too much power to bestow on a private organization. But in a non-right-to-work state, if employees do not pay union dues or fees, they can lose their jobs. So to work at a unionized facility in non-right-to-work states, you must, in effect, join the union by paying up to 100 percent of the dues and living under the collective bargaining agreement.

No payment to the union means no job.

If that isn’t coercion, what is? When a robber sticks a knife in your face and says your money or your life, do you really think you have a choice?

Here is the language of a typical labor United Food and Commercial Workers International Union contract: “All employees shall, as a condition of employment, pay to the union the initiation fees and/or reinstatement fees and periodic dues lawfully required by the union … This obligation shall commence on the 31st day following commencement of employment by the employer.”

Does this sound voluntary?

Bernstein argues that without compelling workers to pay dues, they can “reap the significant benefits of union bargaining without paying for them.” But who gets to decide whether a worker is benefited by a union bargaining agreement? Many workers have made a personal decision that the union fees aren’t worth it. In many union shops, very talented and skilled workers may believe that they can advance faster in the company and earn more by not being covered under a one-size-fits-all union contract. Some may not want to pay for the high salaries and perks of union bosses or help pay for Bernstein’s salary.

Does that really make these Americans “freeloaders,” as Bernstein insultingly calls them?

Finally, there is the issue of union political activities. Bernstein says that workers can’t be compelled to pay for this major union expenditure. Except that in practice the union officials make it nearly impossible for workers to retrieve these payments once they are withheld from the paycheck. The National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation, Inc., found, based on audits of union financial statements in litigation, that in many cases over half of the dues paid are not for bargaining of contracts but partisan political activities, such as election ads or other extravagant expenses incurred by the labor bosses.

We know that if they had a real choice, most workers would not freely choose to have these dollars intercepted from their paychecks. When Wisconsin passed Act 10 in 2011 and stopped collecting union dues and fees from paychecks of government workers, some unions saw a decline of 80 percent of worker payments. This is precisely why union officials are so ferociously opposed to these laws.

Union officials try to change the subject away from the compulsion issue and claim that right-to-work is really “right to work for less.” Really? Over the decade ending in 2013, right-to-work states have experienced a higher rate of job growth (8.6 percent) than non-right-to-work states (3.7 percent), according to a study by Arthur Laffer and me for the American Legislative Exchange Council. The worker who works “for less” is the one in the required-union state whose job has left and no longer collects a paycheck at all.

Forced-unionism advocates like Bernstein can argue till the cows come home about how beneficial unions are for workers. But the problem isn’t that they can’t convince me. It’s that they can’t persuade the very blue-collar workers who they claim benefit from the union. As a 17-year-old, I saw firsthand how the union was ripping me off, and I wanted no part of it. So if unions are such a winner for workers, why must they impose laws to force people to join and pay dues? There is no good answer to that one, which is why Wisconsin and a handful of other states are likely to switch to right-to-work and give American workers what liberals used to say they were in favor of: the right to choose.

Mr. Moore  is the Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Project for Economic Growth, at The Heritage Foundation.  This article was originally published in The Washington Times  and can be found on The Daily Signal.

Unions Losing Because Of Greed, Corruption

 

Wolf Budget Costs Family Of Four $1419

Wolf Budget Costs Family Of Four $1419
Wolf Budget Costs Family Of Four $1419

By Bob Dick

Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget proposal expands the size of government and shrinks the size of your wallet.

The governor argues that his property tax relief plan would offset the brunt of these tax hikes, but this relief is delayed until 2016-17. In the meantime, the state will collect higher taxes and retain those funds.

Should Gov. Wolf’s property tax plan pass the General Assembly, there’s no guarantee school districts will stop raising property taxes. Even if local governments did manage to hold the line on property taxes, Pennsylvanians would suffer a net tax increase of $4.3 billion in the 2016-2017 budget.

These tax hikes will grease the wheels for record levels of spending. Under Gov. Wolf’s plan, true General Fund spending in 2015-16 would reach $31.6 billion (Governor Wolf moves $1.75 billion in school pension payments to a new fund, which makes the General Fund increase appear smaller). This amounts to the largest spending increase in 25 years.

Of course, the General Fund is only a portion of Pennsylvania’s total operating budget. If each of Gov. Wolf’s proposals were enacted, Pennsylvania’s total operating budget would surpass $78.6 billion—the highest spending level in the commonwealth’s history.

Unsustainable spending growth and tax increases have been the prevailing trend in Pennsylvania since the 1970s. As a result, Pennsylvania ranks near the bottom in job, income and population growth. Governor Wolf’s proposals would accelerate this trend despite evidence of its harmful consequences.

There is a better alternative.

We need to grow the economy by limiting government. This means unleashing innovators and protecting working families—not weighing them down with higher taxes.

For a detailed look at the budget visit here.

Bob Dick is a Policy Analyst for the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives.

Wolf Budget Costs Family Of Four $1419

Pension Crisis Ignored By Wolf

By Sen. Scott Wagner (R-28)

Governor Wolf unveiled his 2015 – 2016 budget on March 3. Scott Wagner Pension Crisis Ignored By Wolf

The governor is proposing to give the public school system an additional $1 Billion dollars in his budget.

I agree that our public school system needs to be a major focus.

Getting a good education is the foundation for success.

I am a firm believer that our public school system needs to “reinvent itself” to meet the needs to compete in a world economy and also to meet the needs of the ever- changing workforce required for manufacturing and the various skilled labor sectors.

Everyone knows that Pennsylvania has a pension crisis and it must be fixed immediately.

School teachers and administrators who will be retiring in the future are part of the pension system that has to be changed so that Pennsylvanians are not continuing to throw money at a problem that will continue to be a problem and will require more money in the future.

Governor Wolf is in the process of throwing money at the education problem.

Money will not solve the problem –  the problem needs to be fixed first.

In the business world, this concept is called throwing money down a black hole with no results.

There are also plenty of solutions on the spending side that should be implemented which would free up money to actually impact our children’s education.

In addition to pension reform, eliminating prevailing wage mandates on all school district capital and maintenance projects, updating the funding formula would all alleviate some of the financial burden our school districts face.

Pension Crisis Ignored By Wolf

Mother Daughter Abortion Story

Karen Reynoso’s mother, Miriam Kirk, accompanied her for her first two abortions. Karen would then have another two abortions without her mother’s knowledge. Mother Daughter Abortion Story

When regret and remorse begin to impact the lives of post-abortive women, a mother-daughter relationship like that can be torn apart. But Karen and Miriam actually drew closer, and they will talk about the healing they both found on “The Gospel of Life” at 6 o’clock tonight, March 3, on Radio Maria with host Janet Morana, executive director of Priests for Life and co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.

After receiving healing in 2003 through a post-abortion Bible study, Karen began facilitating Bible studies for other women.  Karen also served as a regional coordinator for the Silent No More Awareness Campaign from 2004 to 2010 and was part of a team that led three 40 Days for Life Campaigns in 2009 and 2010.  Karen has served on the board of directors of CHOICES Women’s Resource Center since 2010.

In 2013, she attended a Deeper Still weekend retreat and the Lord took her deeper still in her healing.  After the retreat, Karen, her mother and two other women felt compelled to bring Deeper Still to Southern California and began a Chapter in Fallbrook, CA.

Karen is employed as an environmental consultant. She and her husband, Art, have been married since 1996.

Miriam has been involved in pro-life and abortion recovery ministries since 2006. She joined Fallbrook Pregnancy Resource Center as a bookkeeping volunteer and eventually became a board member and then board treasurer.   As she watched Karen progress on her healing journey from her abortions, Miriam recognized the gravity of her own part in that journey. She says that she and Karen have been blessed to be able to work together to extend healing to others with abortion- wounded hearts, and she  also has a yearning to bring restoration and healing to men and other family members who have been touched by abortion.

Miriam and her husband, Jim, are retired and have four children, more than 20 grandchildren (including blended and married) and six great-grandchildren.

For a list of Radio Maria stations and to listen online, go to Radio Maria website.  A free app also is available for smart phones and tablets.

“The Gospel of Life” is re-aired at 2 a.m. ET on Thursdays and midnight Sunday. All the shows are archived at www.priestsforlife.org/radiomaria

Mother Daughter Abortion Story will be on Radio Maria
Mother Daughter Abortion Story

Standardized Tests Defended

CHRIS FREIND Standardized Tests Defended
By Chris Freind

When convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal was asked to be the commencement speaker for Goddard College in Vermont, most people had two reactions:

1. Goddard’s invite was classless.

2. What kind of school doesn’t administer tests or give grades?

Goddard became the butt of jokes, as people asked why anyone would pay money to attend a college that didn’t quantifiably rate student progress.

College is a huge investment, so parents want to know how effectively the institution is educating their child. Plain and simple, the best way to gauge that is through tests. Yet, that same logic is increasingly under attack when applied to standardized tests in our elementary and high schools. Movements are underway to decrease or eliminate such tests, alleging they are ineffective and too stressful on the students.

Taking a test is stressful? And that’s bad?

Of course taking tests has an element of stress! That’s a good thing, as it teaches how to work effectively under pressure. Despite the misguided souls who believe such a concept is passé, it’s a timeless lesson that will help our children succeed in that thing called “The Real World.”

Leading the charge against “high-stakes standardized testing” is the New Jersey Education Association, which has unleashed a six-week ad campaign, with parents and teachers discussing how detestable such tests are.

Gee, what a surprise. A teachers’ union (just like those in Pennsylvania) whining that things are unfair and that the system is stacked against them. Who’d have thought?

Here are some gems from the commercials:

— “We are setting our kids up to fail.”

— “All of the other things that make you a great human being are not important anymore … what’s more important is can you answer A, B, C, or D.”

— “My first grader cried” after preparing for a test.

— “Standardized testing has gone from a nuisance to a concern to a crisis.”

— “Education is supposed to be about our students, and it’s becoming about a test.”

Where do we start?

First, glad to see the union finally realizes education should be about the student, since that’s never been a priority. Instead, its focus has always been gaining teacher tenure as quickly as possible while keeping the public schools a monopoly, crushing any attempt at competition.

Since monopolies, by definition, are responsible to no one, it’s easy to see why the union staunchly opposes testing. It’s petrified of being held accountable.

Testing provides a quantifiable benchmark to measure both student and teacher performance, which, in turn, creates accountability. Isn’t that what we should want for our children? How could this possibly be a “nuisance” or “crisis?”

The real crisis is people burying their heads in the sand, thinking everything will be just peaches if we coddle our kids by eliminating yardsticks for success. It’s just the latest in the “everyone gets a trophy” homogenization of America, which is destroying our children.

And how does taking a test make someone less of a “great human being?” Talk about insane pyscho-babble. Standardized testing doesn’t make children less nice, nor does it degrade their skills at baseball, violin or karate. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. In fact, despite our politically correct society, all of those activities have “tests” of their own. Not hitting the correct notes on the musical instrument? Practice more. Having trouble catching the ball? You won’t play until you improve. Can’t master karate techniques? Sorry — no black belt until you do.

Critics are turning a blind eye to the indisputable fact that we are constantly tested: in college, the workplace, sports, friendships, family, marriage. Tests are impossible to avoid for the simple reason that life itself is one giant series of challenges. How we deal with them — our successes and failures — is how we are evaluated.

Critics claim that school programs are being eliminated to fund, and prepare for, the tests. Two points: A.) gaining knowledge in math, science and reading is far more important than extracurricular programs, which, while nice, aren’t going to equip students to compete in the real world, and B.) that’s an issue less about testing than it is about public schools squandering billions. With better stewardship of that money, there is no reason students can’t have both.

Standardized tests are not the be-all and end-all. Admittedly, some schools are testing their students too often, and, in the process, placing an undue amount of pressure on them, which becomes counterproductive. Nonetheless, testing remains an absolute necessity.

Let’s keep this in perspective. These tests are not to land a great job or get into college. They are simply designed to ascertain what subject areas need to be improved upon, and ultimately, to incentivize us to better educate our children. And as to “teaching to the test,” that’s not a bad thing so long as the test is seeking answers to relevant material. Students need to know certain things, period. So why would a reasonable person oppose a test that quantifies how well they understand those concepts?

And if not tests, then what? What is a viable alternative to measuring our children’s knowledge? Individual evaluations by teachers? Sorry, but that doesn’t cut it. There are many fantastic educators, but also many who, armed with tenure, are content doing the bare minimum. After all, why go the extra mile when they’re making the same money regardless of effort (teacher pay is virtually never linked to student performance), and have guaranteed job security?

Clearly, many factors related to student achievement are out of teachers’ control. But so what? That’s not an excuse to walk away from seeing where our children rate on the knowledge scale.

Standardized tests expose the unions’ dirty secret that the pubic school system isn’t working. It’s not working in the cities or suburbs. It’s not working when more money is poured into less affluent schools, and it’s not working in schools flush with cash. Color, race, creed and socioeconomic status all are irrelevant. Sure, there are different levels of achievement, but when we stack our best and brightest against the global competition, we not only lose, but continue to fall farther behind.

The crisis we face is of epidemic proportion, one that cannot be solved by throwing more money at the problem or instituting feel-good fairytale solutions. We cannot afford to waste another decade, forsaking our children because some choose to ignore the widespread failure occurring year after year. Our children are no longer competing against those in Seattle and San Francisco, but Singapore, Stockholm and Sydney. Compared to our industrialized competitors, America ranks near the bottom of all educational categories.

It’s bad enough we have fooled ourselves into thinking dumbing down standardized tests, such as the SAT, is a good thing. But taking it further by allowing parents to opt their children out of standardized tests, and eliminate such tests altogether, is a colossal failure in the making.

We have been failing our children for far too long. Let’s not compound that by teaching the wrong lesson about life’s tests.

Standardized Tests Defended

Vaccination Mandates Are Necessary

CHRIS FREIND Vaccination Mandates Are Necessary
By Chris Freind

Mandated vaccinations, or not? That’s the question going viral in America.

And the cure to quell the increasingly nasty debate? Common sense.

Government-mandated vaccination is one of those issues that turn traditional political positions upside down. Some who believe that a paternalistic government knows best are staunchly opposed. On the flip side, many civil libertarians, who abhor governmental intrusion in private lives, nonetheless think that the public must be protected from communicable diseases through required vaccination.

Unfortunately, because misinformation spreads more quickly than measles, the debate has turned ugly, with some even resorting to death threats against opponents. Mandated vaccinations or not, one thing is certain: We’ll never solve this problem if civility and open-mindedness are replaced by hatred.

With objectivity in mind, here is a sober look at the situation:

1. Fact: Vaccines work. They are so effective that many diseases, responsible for millions of deaths, have literally been wiped off the face of the earth. Are they safe? Absolutely. Is that a 100 percent guarantee? That’s an incredibly stupid question, though it’s being asked frequently by some in the anti-vaccination crowd. Nothing is 100 percent except taxes, death, and more taxes.

Rejecting vaccines on the naive premise that a safe outcome can’t be guaranteed should come as no surprise. America has become a risk-averse nation where attempts to “sanitize” everything is commonplace, from the sports field to the classroom to the office. But common sense tells us that’s simply impossible, since real life isn’t always rainbows and lollypops. Never has been, never will be. There is risk in everything, so the best we can do is mitigate those risks and play the odds. Nowhere is that more applicable than in getting vaccinated.

2. Are government-mandated vaccines a slippery slope? Without a doubt. Any time the people willingly give the government that level of power, the possibility exists for abuse and uncontrolled overreach in the name of “the greater good.” Where will it end? Should flu shots be mandated? How about new Ebola vaccines hastily brought to market? Once government mandates (for anything) are implemented, they almost never go away, and continue to grow.

Throughout history, Big Government has run roughshod over individual rights much more than it has respected them. So yes, the possibility is very real that government will go too far should it be given the power to mandate vaccines for certain diseases.

But there is a solution to that problem. It’s called we the people, exercising our unique rights as Americans to call the shots in this country – no pun intended. We, along with the free press, are the ultimate check-and-balance to an oppressive government. It’s our job to ensure it stays within the limits we set. If we don’t, we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.

But this is nothing new. The price of democracy has always been eternal vigilance.

3. Mandated vaccines should be decided on a case-by-case basis depending on the disease. Sure, the flu is contagious, and kills thousands annually. But since the flu strain changes each year, flu shots are guesswork; they are a solid defense, but never a guarantee against contracting the flu, as this year’s vaccine demonstrated. But that’s apples-to-oranges compared to many of nature’s other, far more potent killers – ones we have defeated – from measles to polio to smallpox.

Determining which vaccines should be mandated is a challenge, but one that with vigilance and common sense, can be solved.

4. Vaccine mandates should not be confused with governmental overreach in other areas, such as when Connecticut forcibly injected chemotherapy into a 17-year old girl who didn’t want the treatment. Since cancer isn’t transmittable, and she was the only person affected, her decision should have been respected.

Contrast that with measles’ 90 percent contagion rate, which jeopardizes newborns and high-risk individuals who cannot be vaccinated, and it’s a no-brainer why mandated vaccinations trump an individual’s rights.

5. Given that the point is to protect the general public from highly communicable diseases, why do schools allow parents to opt out for religious or personal reasons, as they do in Pennsylvania? Having catch-all exemptions defeats the whole purpose of mandatory vaccinations.

6. There must be a system to compensate individuals who have an adverse reaction, from health care to remuneration. Just as unfunded mandates are inherently unfair, so too would be requiring medical injections with no protections for the individual should something go wrong.

Many people aren’t getting vaccinated because they’re buying into the myth that autism is caused by vaccines. It’s not.

There is virtually no evidence to support that claim, especially after a British medical study linking childhood vaccines to autism, often quoted by the anti-vaccination movement, was found to be a total fabrication. Frustrating as it is not knowing what causes autism, it doesn’t help by stabbing in the dark, looking for someone or something to blame, especially when it results in non-vaccinations based on a faulty premise.

And the claim that the pharmaceutical industry is in cahoots with the FDA? Give us a break.

Vaccine profits account for a mere fraction of total revenue – a reason why many companies have exited the vaccine business altogether. In more practical terms, does anyone really believe that in our social media society, where we constantly tell the world everything we’re doing, that a conspiracy on that level would stay secret for more than five minutes?

Ignorance-based misinformation is one thing, but it is abhorrent when parents purposely infect their children at “measles parties” so they become immune “the natural way.” Doing so is child abuse, plain and simple, and parents should be charged. Making decisions that affect only oneself, insane as they may be, is that person’s business. But when the lives of others, especially children, are deliberately placed in life-threatening situations, there is an obligation for the government to intervene.

* * *

“If we’re extinguished, there’s nothing natural about that … it’s just stupid.” So said Matthew Broderick’s character in “War Games” when talking about nuclear war.

If just a single life is extinguished by once-eradicated diseases because the ignorant go unvaccinated, it will show we still don’t have a vaccination for the most prevalent human disease: stupidity.

Vaccination Mandates Are Necessary

Dirty Chicago Honors Disgraced Little Leaguers

CHRIS FREIND Dirty Chicago Honors Disgraced Little Leaguers
By Chris Freind

There’s good news and bad. The bad is that Dirty Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is awarding championship rings to his city’s Jackie Robinson West Little League team, despite the glaring fact that they lost their title for cheating.

The good news is that the unemployment rate will surely plummet. Since cheaters apparently prosper, and rule-breaking should have no bearing on winning, history will have to be re-written. Legal petitions need to be filed, public relations campaigns waged, — history books revised. If a challenger dare step up to the plate, the defense will be hurling the racist label quicker than a fastball.

For starters:

Lance Armstrong’s testicular fortitude while using steroids makes him deserving of his forfeited titles.

Pop group Milli Vanilli is entitled to be in sync with other cheaters, and should have their stripped Grammy reinstated.

Break the bank if need be, but Bernie Madoff should be freed, and his Ponzi-scheme money restored.

Bill Clinton’s impeachment should go up in smoke, as he deserves another crack in the Oval Office.

Coming full circle, we need to lift the lifetime bans on Shoeless Joe Jackson and his 7 other Chicago White Sox teammates.
Awarding championship rings and demanding that Little League reverse its decision sets a horrendous example for America’s youth. Whatever the reason for defending the indefensible — perceived political gain (“they are heroes,” says Jesse Jackson) sheer ignorance, or a sense of entitlement (they “earned it,” says a parent) — those backing the team are making fools of themselves and doing an immense disservice to the players.

Enough of the warped mentality that the players are being victimized and, since they did nothing wrong, deserve their championship. Not true.

Rather than being innocent, they are right in the middle of the storm. It is inconceivable that players at that level didn’t know that certain teammates lived outside the designated boundaries. These kids know each other and the rules, as much as coaches. That means they looked the other way in order to win, with cheating an acceptable means to an end.

Cheating has consequences, no matter what age. They must live with that. So what that the team worked hard and sacrificed? True, but irrelevant.

Bernie Madoff and Lance Armstrong worked hard — so what? That doesn’t make their achievements honorable, or legal.

Clearly, coaches and parents bear much more responsibility. The players are a product of their environment, with parents either reliving their glory years of youth sports, or, more likely, making up for the glory they never had.

By actively engaging in rule-breaking, their message is that it’s okay to cheat. It won’t stop at Little League, but will make its way to school, home, family, and job. The irony is the people who fostered an environment of fraud will be the same ones asking “how could this happen?” when their children get expelled, divorced, or arrested.

When are we going to stop using race as the go-to answer for everything? Every time black leaders or parents play the race card, they’re not only angering others, but doing a disservice to their own, sending the unmistakable message they’re different; that separate rules should apply to them. Resentment explodes, the racial divide widens, and the dream of a colorblind society slips further away.

Racism has absolutely nothing to do with this situation. Because it’s been injected, the message to players is that bigotry — not cheating — is the reason they lost their title. How can we possibly expect them to grow into productive citizens when we are teaching all the wrong lessons?

Where does it end? Should teams use players over the age of eligibility? How about banned bats? Corked balls? If leaders absolve cheaters, why have rules? All teams will break them because everybody does it. That’s not a defense in the court of public opinion, nor a court of law.

Where are the presidential candidates? Why aren’t they using their bully pulpits to put the apologists in their places, slam the race-mongers, imparting a vision for an America free of corruption?

Because they’re afraid to take a stand on anything controversial, not understanding that such courage is exactly what most Americans, of all races and political affiliations, are seeking.

American playwright Terrence McNally said it best, “Cheating is not the American way. It is small, while we are large. It is cheap, while we are richly endowed. It is destructive, while we are creative. It is doomed to fail, while our gifts and responsibilities call us to achieve. It sabotages trust and weakens the bonds of spirit and humanity, without which we perish.”

Let’s turn the Jackie Robinson error into a home run by showing that honor should always trump deceit.

Dirty Chicago Honors Disgraced Little Leaguers

Corruption Everywhere Says Freind

CHRIS FREIND Corruption Everywhere Says Freind
By Chris Freind

 

Dear Little League International:

Welcome to the party!

By stripping Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West team of its title, you confirmed the sad but obvious fact that cheating is everywhere, including Little League baseball.

Many successful teams have come under fire by coaches and parents, usually in private, for allegedly breaking the rules. Sour grapes aside, it is startling that, when pressed for more detail, virtually every coach follows his accusation the same way:

Everybody does it.

One doesn’t have to be a baseball aficionado to understand that, if that’s true, you must either crack down hard on every violation, or change the rules. But retaining the status quo will only fuel people’s perception that Little League is not the wholesome organization it once was.

America’s game, and more importantly, the integrity of our children — our future — is at stake.

Regards,

The American Public

The Little League revelation should come as no surprise, except to those who deliberately keep their eyes wide shut.

Corruption and hypocrisy have become part of the American fabric, woven into every strand of society. And since young people mimic who and what they see — the good, and even more, the bad — it’s no wonder that trend is skyrocketing.

Why would a youth baseball team cheat? Why wouldn’t they?

After all, even children are aware that cheaters prosper, since society conveniently looks the other way when their “heroes” break the rules. Given the lack of negative consequences, why wouldn’t our children want to emulate them?

* * *
Tom Brady and the New England Patriots allegedly deflated some footballs, making them easier to throw and catch.

So what if “someone” deflated a few balls below the league’s mandated pressure minimum? Big deal. Does any rational person really believe the NFL will penalize the Patriots by stripping them of their incredible last-second Super Bowl victory?

Of course not. And why?

Because few actually care about DeflateGate. Oh, many feign surprise with “how-could-that-happen?” self-righteous indignation. But the truth is, Americans have come to overlook such things so long as there’s a perceived benefit.

In DeflateGate, the benefit was seeing if Brady, love him or hate him, could become part of NFL immortality by winning his fourth Super Bowl, and if the Patriots could regain their swagger by denying the Seattle Seahawks back-to-back championships. Now that both achievements are in the books, the NFL’s “internal investigation” will likely go right into the garbage.

Lesson: It doesn’t matter if you bend the rules or deflate them altogether, so long as you win.

What about the tacit approval by Major League Baseball and its fans of banned drugs during the “steroid era?” Let’s be honest. The league and fans knew steroid use was rampant just by looking at players’ “miraculous” physical transformations, not to mention their superhuman accomplishments that smashed decades-old records with ease.

And guess what? No one cared, at least not enough to force a change. As the famous saying goes, “chicks dig the long ball.” So long as home runs and high-scoring games were guaranteed, fans were fine with steroid use. And so was a league that watched billions flow through its doors, particularly important since baseball had been in danger of going under after the 1994 strike.

Lesson to kids: Take steroids to get better, and people will look the other way.

The problem, of course, is that it’s not OK. It should not be acceptable to look the other way or break the rules whenever convenient. Doing so creates a slippery slope where it’s no longer just footballs and baseballs, but criminal acts and societal breakdown.

When corruption and hypocrisy pervade every level of society, trust is eroded to the point where citizens lose faith in government, business, sports and even themselves. And at that point, America becomes like every other second- and third-world nation that eschews personal responsibility in favor of a “do-whatever-you-have-to-do” to get ahead attitude, including running roughshod over people and rules to get there.

It’s clearly not just sports where we see the line between right and wrong getting obliterated. Consider:

–The media: Among many examples, we have $10 million a year network news anchor Brian Williams, who admitted to fabricating (and progressively embellishing) a major news story, and whose veracity on other stories continues to be questioned. Despite having lost all credibility, however, his punishment is a mere six-month suspension.

Lesson: Lying is OK, even after you get caught.

–Religion: A widespread pedophilia sex scandal rocks the Catholic church to the highest levels, but we’re told that they were just isolated cases, that there was no wink-wink code between priests, both those involved in the acts and those looking the other way to protect their fellow clergymen and their own careers. Ditto for the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal. Why did the investigation drag on for so long, permitting the predator to remain free?

–Business: Wall Street corruption is rampant, from shady accounting techniques to investment banks using inside information to bet against their own clients. Yet, time and again, the only penalty is a timid slap on the wrist while the millionaires get richer, the average Joe gets shafted, the rules barely change, and the firms “too big to fail” continue to cozy up to the very regulators who are supposed to be keeping them in check.

Lesson: If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.

–Entertainment: It’s the height of hypocrisy when the same people who rail so adamantly against pornography and exploitation of women fawn over “50 Shades Of Grey,” which, putting it kindly, is pornographic by its nature. And many of those protesting child abuse and violence are huge fans of “The Hunger Games,” which glorifies kids killing kids. The point here is not to censor Hollywood — they need to do that themselves — but to illustrate yet another example of massive inconsistency.

— Individuals: Employees account for more retail theft than shoplifters, corporate stealing continues to grow, and fraud in workers’ compensation claims and other government programs is at an all-time high, all part of the entitlement “let-me-get-mine” mentality. Too many justify their actions in the belief that any entity with deep pockets won’t miss whatever is stolen, and “no one gets hurt.”

Except that we do. Not just because we, as a society, end up paying the bill, but that we lose more of our soul every time we convince ourselves that cheating and hypocrisy are acceptable. Or worse, when we know something is wrong, yet sit back and do nothing.

Let’s hope the silent majority finds its moral compass and starts speaking up, or America’s promise of “liberty and justice for all” will soon be completely deflated.

Corruption Everywhere Says Freind