Red Chinese Taxpayers’ BFF

Red Chinese Taxpayers’ BFF
By Bob Guzzardi


Yahoo/ Agence France-Presse reports that a Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt on Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order.

“In our opinion, the United States has already been defaulting,” Guan Jianzhong, president of Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd., the only Chinese agency that gives sovereign ratings, was quoted by the Global Times saying.

The irony the serial, mass murdering totalitarian Mao Zedong comes to the rescue of the American Taxpayer. Pathetic when the Chinese government states the obvious truth and our own Administration obfuscates the effects of reckless expansion of Government Fiat Dollar Supply.  It is hard to think of the dollar as real money anymore given the way it has been abusively devalued by our own government

Devaluing the currency as Federal Reserve does when it buys Federal Deficit Debt with Fiat Money devalues the real, as opposed to nominal, savings of every saver and diminishes value of real savings that can be invested in productive job creating business that raise the standard of living for all of us. The government (and Democrats) can ignore American savers and investors and buy off corporations with subsidies and special tax breaks but it can’t ignore the Chinese.

 

Red Chinese Taxpayers’ BFF

The New Depression Fact or Fiction

Dale Maharidge spent spent several
years traveling by rail to many parts of America speaking with people
who have been affected by what he calls the New Depression in
his book Someplace in America: The new depression. It was
very disheartening to discover just how bad many Americans are
suffering today. Many people have gone broke because of health care
bills. Some have been laid off because of jobs leaving the country.
Other factors—things that could happen to any of us like fires,
floods, natural disasters, car accidents, have ravaged their lives.

The employment rate has risen back to
9.1 percent overall, almost 18 percent in African American
communities, and it will be 50 t0 60 percent for Latino American and
African American teenagers in the inner city. What will the youth be
doing this summer? One may say this is a travesty, or that we all
need to buckle down and share in the hard times that sometimes
happen. The truth is that these are just not hard times that
happened. Much of this has been either engineered, or maintained,
purposely by those who make profit from the suffering of working
class people and the poor. Even the prisons have been privatized.
It is more profitable for corporations who own prisons to have people
locked up, which costs each tax payer about 40,000 dollars per
person, than working for half that cost.

After the big mortgage crash more than
700 billion dollars were given to banks and large financial
institutions, no strings attached, so that the capital would continue
to flow. This money still has not reached those in need. People’s
mortgages are still being foreclosed, money is still being invested
overseas instead of in the U.S., and jobs are still not being
created. The companies that profited from these interest free loans
have not only made record profits, but they are not paying taxes.
Some have even received tax credits as the money flows outward to
foreign investments. In the meantime families are becoming homeless
or barely able to make it. We blame this crash on unions and on
teachers? There is a much larger problem here.

The problem is that no one really cares
about the average American. The social contract has been broken.
The government no longer answers to the demands of the people, and
small groups of the people no longer support the well being of the
whole country as much as they support themselves or their small
group. Until we can come together and realize that we are one
nation under God and one people, and that a divided people will
not prosper, we will have runaway unemployment, runaway jobs, and all
of the Commonwealth will continue to be sold to private companies.

We have returned to the Great
Battle-field that Lincoln referred to in his Gettysburg
Address, but this battle field is within our hearts and minds.
What we do will decide whether this nation dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal will endure. It is
truly up to us to not be willing to see our neighbors driven into
poverty. And who is my neighbor? Anyone who I will treat kindly out
of the love in your heart.

Daylin Leach Wants To Trap Kids In Violent Schools

This article is being reprinted with the permission of Bob Guzzardi

By Bob Guzzardi


The Republicans of Lower Merion and Narberth have done an excellent compare and contrast on the critical issue of a parents Freedom to Choose, and the need for poor kids to escape violent and educationally failing schools.

This piece by Party Chairman Lance Rogers takes aim at State Sen. Daylin Leach’s (D-17) attack on Students First, an education advocacy group started by Michelle Rhee, who was chancellor of the Washington D.C. public school system.

And here is the Students First response to Leach’s vicious piece.

Democrats want to trap kids in violent and educationally dysfunctional schools and Republicans want to free them. The Choice is Clear: Coercion or Freedom. Choice or Compulsion.

Abraham Lincoln would be proud. I am proud. And where does Senator Leach send his kids to school? And you? Where do you choose to send your kids to school?

Sen. Leach is, uncharacteristically, silent. Not a bad thing but I would like to know if he is as hypocritical as I think he is. Poor Sen. Daylin, the victim of Rich Right Wingers…oh wait, the proponents aren’t Republicans and aren’t getting rich from bad government as so many of Sen. Daylin’s colleagues.

Democrats cannot be trusted with educational policy. The Democratic agenda enriches the entrenched status quo bureaucracy at the expense of effective education and parental choice. To the Democrat, the state, the collectivist system, and the bureaucratic professionals know what is best for a child, better than a parent. More money being taken from citizens and given to a sclerotic system does not translate to better eduction.

 

Daylin Leach Wants To Trap Kids In Violent Schools

Daylin Leach Wants To Trap Kids In Violent Schools

Santorum Not The Guy

Santorum Not The Guy  is being published with the  permission of Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi

By Bob Guzzardi

Our former senator, Rick Santorum, has thrown his hat in ring for the Republican presidential nomination.

Santorum is not a Tea Party guy. He is an establishment insider, big government Republican. He is a big spender, union financed and an  “earmarker”.

The Club for Growth notes that he supported No Child Left Behind in 2001, which greatly expanded the federal government’s role in education; the massive new Medicare drug entitlement in 2003  that now costs taxpayers over $60 billion a year and has almost $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities; and that he voted for the 2005 highway bill that included thousands of wasteful earmarks

I will grant that the Club for Growth does say nice things about him regarding some things — especially his support for broad-based tax cuts — but they don’t balance out.

I think his anti-growth anti-free trade votes are a result of his close ties to Philadelphia unions, like John Dougherty’s IBEW 98 which supported him openly.

He is no “fiscal conservative.”

I have met him and found him to be a  very slick talker and unbelievably arrogant.

He would be a less than ideal candidate. The people of Pennsylvania handily rejected him in 2006 with him getting 797,000 less votes than he did six years before — and fewer votes in every county.

Anyone who picks the less than effective and well paid BrabenderCox as a consultant is not going to do well.

And of course many of us will not forget that then big government Senator Rick Santorum, choosing power over stated principle, hypocritically and relentlessly, backed union-financed Big Government Democrat Senator Arlen Specter against fiscal common sense Pat Toomey.

We all know the country would have been better off with Senator Pat Toomey’s ahead-of-the-curve understanding of the devastating economic effects of out of control Big Government debt and deficits. 

 

Santorum Not The Guy

Richard Dreyfuss WPHT Civics Lesson

Richard Dreyfuss  has his heart in the right place but his mind remains mostly stuck in the left one. Richard Dreyfuss WPHT Civics Lesson

The man  who won the 1978 Best Actor Oscar for The Goodbye Girl and might be best known for his role as Matt Hooper in Jaws described to a crowd of about 700 at The National Constitution Center, June 8, his plan to return the teaching of civics to its proper place in the nation’s schools.

The event was hosted by WPHT 1210, now calling itself “Talk Radio WPHT” instead of “The Big Talker”.

It was moderated by WPHT’s Dom Giordano.

Dreyfuss said the germ for the idea for what became The Dreyfuss Initiative occurred during the 2000 election when “the court stopped the election process”.

This brought one loud, derisive snort of laughter from a member of the audience.

Dreyfuss continued saying “All my friends targeted Bush as the enemy.” He became convinced, however, that it was the ignorance of his friends and of the American public that was what allowed such a thing to happen.

Anyway, Dreyfuss was eventually hired for a stage show in England from which he was quickly fired after it was discovered that he wasn’t being falsely humble when he said he couldn’t sing or dance.  While between jobs he “trolled for work” and found it lecturing on history and current events.

At this point he became aware of a dearth of understanding by citizens as to how their governments work. This was even more true of Europeans than Americans, he said.

So began the Initiative which has pointedly politically diverse board of governance — noted pollster Frank Luntz is a director and Scott Faulkner, who was the Reagan-Bush campaign’s national director of personnel in 1980 and was elected by the Gingrich Congress to be the first Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1995 is executive director.

Faulkner, in fact, shared the stage with Dreyfuss in Philly.

Dreyfuss lecture rambled  with occasional shots at George W. Bush, Fox News and Rupert Murdoch. After stridently blaming Fox for harming the political discourse, Giordano suggested he add MSNBC to list. Dreyfuss considered for a moment then agreed.

And Dreyfuss did not, this evening, do the civic-minded thing and consider the claims he was spouting as facts. In describing one of the sins of America he said that 90 blacks a month were lynched for 100 years which would mean that there were a 108,000 blacks lynched during the Jim Crow era.

According to the Tuskegee Institute, there were 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites lynched in this country between 1882 and 1968.

Still, Dreyfuss truly expressed love for this country. He said it was the best in history and warned that if we did not start taking the teaching of this seriously it would not last the 21st century.

Dreyfuss showed respect for the Tea Party giving one questioner who identified himself as a member of a New Jersey group much praise and encouragement. He also singled out Republican congressmen Darrell Issa and Speaker John Boehner as being the only political figures who have given him support.

Of the 20 or so persons who lined up to ask Dreyfuss questions only five got to ask them due to the length of Dreyfuss’s answers.

Also, Giordano said that the meeting was being streamed live although it was not broadcasts over the air on WPHT due to the Phillies-Dodgers game. The Phils won 2-0, by the way, behind Cole Hamels’ pitching, a Ryan Howard home run and a Shane Victorino triple.

Dreyfuss expressed criticism about the entertainment now being provided by Hollywood. He said the only movies being made involved “teenaged angst about vampires” or “self-congratulatory” exercises in technology like Avatar.

The Independence Hall Tea Party Association passed out flyers after the event advertising “The Energy Independence Day Tea Party” which will be held on Independence Mall, 1-3 p.m., July 4. It will feature Giordano, Ambassador John Bolton, The Honorable Anna Little, businessman Joey Vento, the 286 Band and include a debate about energy.

The event is free.

There will be an after-party featuring soft drinks and hor dourves. Cost is $20 and reservations are required. Call 215-690-4043.

Also there will be a pre-event lunch. Stay tuned for details.

Co-sponsors are the Cherry Hill Tea Party and the Diamond State Tea Party.

Richard Dreyfuss WPHT Civics Lesson

Pa. Should Follow Tenn. Lead On Teachers Union

Tennessee , June 1, ended collective bargaining for school teachers, a story pointedly ignored by the in-the-pocket-for-the-left news media.

The law signed by Gov. Bill Haslam allows for a process called “collaborative conferencing” but leaves the school boards with the final say — the teachers get no right to appeal; no right to ask for binding arbitration.

Further, there are certain things the teachers may not negotiate namely staffing decisions, the use of grant money, the employee evaluation process and whether or not payroll deductions can be made for
political purposes.

It sounds almost like what existed in Pennsylvania before 1970 when the teachers got their right to strike.

Pennsylvania, the state most tortured by child-hating teacher strikes and “work to rule” negotiating strategies, is pondering plans to replace teacher strikes with binding arbitration and allow for seniority-based economic furloughs.

That’s not the way to solve the problem.

What Tennessee did is the way to solve the problem.

Hat tip FreeRepublic.Com

Barletta Bans Recordings At Town Halls

Barletta Bans Recordings At Town Halls — Newly minted coal-country congressmen Lou Barletta (R-Pa11) and Tom Marino (R-Pa10) have sparked fears they have gone Potomac by instituting recording bans at recent town hall meetings.

Barletta has denied the claim saying the event at which he banned personal recordings was a  “private” meeting.

To which he had opened to the old media who of course were given permission to record.

The congressmen’s actions were motivated by orchestrated attempts by Democrats to infiltrate the town halls with unruly disrupters whose antics would be recorded and placed on the YouTube in the hope it would indicate widespread grassroots opposition to Republican policy.

It was an effort to mimic action in 2009 and 2010 by Tea Partyers which led to big Republican gains last November.

What should be remembered, however, is that it wasn’t the angry protestors who made the Democrat incumbents look bad but their responses to them. The incumbents, perhaps most famously Arlen Specter,  were recorded being abusive, mocking and dismissive to them, after which they arrogantly ended constituent meetings completely.

If Barletta and Marino follow that path they will be one-termers.

If they, however, let them obscenely and abusively vent and are judicious in their response the strategy will backfire badly on the Democrats.

The Republicans simply have to make sure they have their own recordings to put on YouTube.

It remains to be seen if they are smart enough to do this.

Barletta Bans Recordings At Town Halls

Middle Class Parents Vs. Billionaire Corporations

Middle Class Parents Vs. Billionaire Corporations — The article is being published with the kind permission of Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi.

The House Republicans are considering giving $ 603,543,000, in this year alone to billionaire private corporations. This is $181, 113,000 more than Governor Corbett proposed.

The entire cost of SB 1, Vouchers/EITC over four years, is: $ 734, 947, 772

SB 1 is designed to subsidize, as required by Article III, section 14 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, the education of children, particularly the poor caught in violent and educationally dysfunctional schools and middle class struggling economically.

In comparison consider the how the state subsidizes  education’s  Princes and Princesses:

UPENN’s president Amy Gutmann’s compensation: $1,367,000 and Penn State’s Graham( $800, 592 according to Journal of Higher Education) flies in one of Penn State’s three airplanes from its own airport. UPITT’s Chancellor;$600,045, Temple U President Anne Weaver Hart; $602, 403) UPITT Chancellor Mark Nordenberg received a 5.7% increase in 2010, $26,500, for a total annual salary of $486,000. This is base salary and not total compensation.

A change in course directing money away from billionaire private corporations to those who need it most may be an idea worth considering. Misallocating taxpayer resources is not in the public interest or advance the general welfare.

 

 

Middle Class Parents Vs. Billionaire Corporations

Forgotten Taxpayer Subsidizes Academic Royalty

Forgotten Taxpayer Subsidizes Academic Royalty  is being published with the kind permission of Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi

Temple University President Ann Weaver Hart is paid   $707,947.00  annually.

Temple University’s 2011 budget is over a Billion Dollars –$1,073,697,000  not including Temple University Health System

The House Republicans have proposed giving Temple University $129,387,000 of The Forgotten Taxpayer’s earnings and savings overriding the Governor’s proposed $82,487,000. As a “nonprofit”, Temple University pays no local property taxes and no State or Federal taxes other than payroll deductions from all employees.

Is subsidizing Pennsylvania’s billionaires and millionaires the best use of Pennsylvanian’s earning and savings?

UPENN President Amy Gutmann is paid $1,367,000 in 2011; 15th highest in 2010

UPENN’s, a private nonprofit corporation has 2011 budget of $6.07 Billion with an endowment of $5.6 Billion (2010)

The House Republicans have proposed financing UPENN with $ 85,282,000 of The Forgotten Taxpayer’s earnings and savings reducing the Governor’s proposed $ 87,771,000. As a private “nonprofit” corporation, UPENN pays no local property taxes and no State or Federal taxes other than payroll deductions from all employees.

Is subsidizing Pennsylvania’s billionaires and millionaires the best use of Pennsylvanian’s earning and savings?

Misallocating resources lowers the standard of living for all of us.

Forcing the many taxpayers to fund the few who benefit is not good policy.

 

Forgotten Taxpayer Subsidizes Academic Royalty

A Tale of Two Colleagues: Meehan Vs. Stollsteimer In 2012?

This article by Chris Friend is being published with his kind permission.

It could be a battle royale between the two former prosecutors, but what about Joe Sestak?

Assistant District Attorney, Delaware County.


Assistant United States Attorney, Eastern District of Pennsylvania,
specializing in prosecuting illegal firearms cases and violent drug
offenders.


Governor-appointed Safe Schools Advocate for the School District of
Philadelphia — a position that was ultimately “eliminated” not for
budgetary reasons, but because he publicly chastised the Governor and
Department of Education for their willful failure to protect students.


Was often mentioned as a possible nominee for United States Attorney.


And now, this person is considering running for Congress as a strong get-tough-on crime candidate.


Such a resume would seem a great springboard for elected office, as
law-and-order candidates have met with great success lately: Governors
Tom Corbett and Chris Christie are former prosecutors, as are
Pennsylvania Congressmen Tom Marino and Pat Meehan, as well as State
Representative Todd Stephens.


But here’s where it gets interesting.  All the aforementioned
politicians are Republicans, but this resume belongs to Jack
Stollsteimer, a self-styled RFK Democrat who is strongly positioned to
win his Party’s nomination in next year’s Seventh Congressional District
race.  To claim the ultimate prize in November, he would have to beat
not just a Republican, but his former U.S. Attorney boss, Rep. Pat
Meehan.


But first things first. Will the path to the nomination be clear, or
will a well-known Democrat with a history of success — and
unpredictability — decide to throw his hat into the ring? And if so,
when?


*****


The district, which includes most of Delaware County, parts of
Chester County and a section of Montgomery, is traditionally perceived
as Republican, because voter registration favors the GOP, and the
Delaware County courthouse has long been controlled by the well-oiled
Republican Machine.


But while Republicans hold a majority of offices throughout the
county, their grip on power has been slipping.  No Republican
presidential candidate has won Delco since 1988, and numerous Democratic
state legislators now represent districts long-held by the GOP. But
perhaps most telling, in 2010 — the largest Republican wave since 1946
— both Governor Tom Cornett and U.S. Senator Pat Toomey lost the
county.


Yet Pat Meehan won by ten points.


Meehan’s impressive showing was bolstered by the Republican tidal
wave and the fact that it was an open seat, since former Congressman Joe
Sestak ran for U.S. Senate.  That substantial victory has provided him a
solid foundation to launch his re-election bid. 


But to stay in office, he will have to wage an aggressive campaign,
taking nothing for granted. Unlike last year, he now owns a voting
record. And when it comes to Congress, Seventh District voters have an
independent streak that defies conventional political wisdom. 


In the 70’s and 80’s, the Seventh was represented by Bob Edgar,
arguably to the Left of Mao and universally recognized as the most
liberal member of Congress.  After giving up the seat to
(unsuccessfully) run for U.S. Senate, Edgar was replaced by the
generally-conservative Republican Curt Weldon. But in the Democratic
wave of 2006, he lost to Sestak, a former Navy Admiral who, like Edgar,
was unabashedly liberal.


Understanding the volatile electorate, the District’s wild
fluctuations of the past, and sensing that the seat is not as safe as
last year’s election results would indicate, the national Republican
Campaign Congressional Committee has “enrolled” Meehan in its Patriot
Program.  An effort designed to assist mostly freshmen, the program
targets the top ten GOP legislators whose perceived vulnerabilities will
likely lead to tough reelection fights.


*****


Stollsteimer has been actively courted not just by local leaders but
the national Democratic Campaign Congressional Committee. To take on
Meehan, though, he must first secure the Democratic Party’s nomination. 
To that end, his plan is to aggressively work the committee to earn its
endorsement, hopefully avoiding an expensive, and potentially bruising,
primary fight. He has already made inroads, having secured the backing
of several highly influential Democrats within the Party hierarchy.


“Jack would be a great candidate if he decides to run, with a strong
profile and reputation for independence and integrity, that has
attracted the attention of the national Democratic Party,” a Party
leader in the district told “Freindly Fire.”


That official requested anonymity, though, as the path has not yet
been smoothly paved for Stollsteimer — or any other potential
candidate.  And that’s because there is an 800 pound gorilla hovering in
the wings who could change the dynamics of the race at a moment’s
notice — for both the primary and general elections.


And in typical fashion, that individual is playing it coy, not
announcing his intentions whether to seek the Congressional seat —
which he happened to hold just seven months ago.


Joe Sestak is the ultimate wild card, an independent Democrat who has
often clashed with Party powerbrokers and a person to whom the terms
“conventional wisdom” and “predictability” simply do not apply.


He gave up what virtually every political analyst stated was a
near-100 percent safe seat, to run as David against Goliath — 30-year
incumbent powerhouse Arlen Specter, whose war chest dwarfed that of
Sestak. The political insiders not only didn’t give Sestak much of a
chance — he was trailing by more than 20 points just a few months out
from the primary — but did everything in their power to stop him. 


They attempted to talk him out of running, not just to keep the
Congressional seat safe but to avoid a primary challenge to Specter. 
When that didn’t work, there was the “Job Gate” offer, in which Sestak
said the White House dangled a high-ranking position in exchange for his
dropping out of the senate race. But that didn’t work, either.


Then the D’s took the gloves off, with prominent leaders, including
then-Governor Rendell and the state Democratic Party chairman, openly
attacking Sestak on numerous fronts.  They said he could not win a
general election, and predicted a Sestak primary victory would be
“cataclysmic” in the fall election.


And yet, despite the GOP wave, Sestak lost to Toomey by a mere two points.


Would Sestak present a viable candidacy to Meehan?  Absolutely.  The
2012 elections will be more favorable to Democrats, not just because a
presidential year always brings out more voters, and political waves are
never sustainable when they crest at such a high level, but because the
“Republicans-are-destroying-our-Medicare” issue will undoubtedly gain
traction.  Democrats are already pointing to their win in the recent New
York special election as evidence, given that the seat was widely
expected to remain in GOP hands.


But for the Democrats to be successful in the Seventh next year, they
need to unify soon or risk losing good candidates.  Very few will be
willing to put blood, sweat and tears into a campaign — and they would
have to open a committee very soon — while the specter of a Sestak
candidacy still looms.  And if Sestak declines to run, but announces
that decision late in the game, precious time will have been wasted.


Sestak would most likely be able to establish a grassroots operation
and generate significant fundraising relatively quickly, due to the
national network gained from his senate run, but the same is not the
case for other candidates. They would have to lay the groundwork, and
that takes time and resources.  And many potential donors and campaign
workers will stay on the sidelines, reluctant to commit to someone like
Stollsteimer — no matter how attractive a candidate he may be —
until Sestak makes up his mind. 


In an age where campaigns routinely begin over a year out from the
election, any significant delay could prove a boon for the Meehan camp.
Translation: the longer Joe Sestak remains noncommittal, the less likely
the Democrats’ chances for success next November.


Will Sestak get back into the political fray?  If so, would it be for
Congress, a position some think is not prominent enough for someone
used to commanding a carrier-battle group — especially when he would
likely return to Washington in the minority? And why would Sestak still
be touring Pennsylvania, meeting new Democrats statewide, if he intends
to run in the relatively small Seventh District? 


It is never easy when it comes to predicting anything regarding Joe
Sestak, and experience has shown that most “experts” are wrong anyway.


So the biggest question is the simplest one: at this point, does even
Joe Sestak himself have any idea what he is going to do?  Whatever the
answer, it’s in the best interest of his Party to make up his mind
quickly.


Let the games begin.