Friday, July 22, 2011

Kaergard No Better Than McDonald on Getting Bel-Wood Facts Right

Today's JS article, "Citizens Like Bel-Wood Plan" by ex-JSEB member and now a reporter, Chris Kaergard wrote, "The new nursing home (214 beds) is planned to have a capacity of 80 Alzheimer patients. The remainder of the 214 bed home will be dedicated to Medicare patients of short term or rehab stays as well as long time residents.

Facts: the remainder of the building will be for Medicaid patients with a handful of Medicare patients. The July census at the present 300 bed Bel-Wood showed 199 beds occupied by only 19 Medicare with a large majority of 151 MEDICAID patients.

Jan 14, 2010, or just 18 months ago the Bel-Wood census was 247; 175 Medicaid beds, a shrinkage in 18 months of 48 filled beds.

The 2/3 filled old Bel-Wood is now costing Peoria County property taxpayers over $3,200,000.00 a year. What will the cost be when the new luxury county owned home has 80 special care Alzheimer beds, filled with a similar percentage or higher of Medicaid patients who already have most of their costs borne by taxpayers?

The JS reporters keep leaving out all the costs of the new B-W. The figure they quote are "construction" costs. Left out is the cost of asbestos removal and demolition of the old existing building plus site preparation, land acquistion and some contingency costs.

Total cost of this luxury (safety net) project including the 30 year bond will be closer to $70 million than the $48 million usually appearing in the JS. I quote an article by McDonald on 5/7/09, a short 26 months ago, "The new facility would cost between roughly $26.3 and $29.2 million including an Alzheimer facility".

Quite a jump from a top of $29 million to approximately $50 million.

The JS, most County Board members and administration has done it's best to mis-lead the taxpayers as to the actual cost to serve approximately 150-160 Medicaid patients.
I will mention again that a fair sized number of B-W patients come from other counties, mainly Tazewell. No property tax support from these families. Although one family member said he owns a business in Peoria and pays property taxes to Peoria County.

There has been little comment by the public on this project. We will see when the "real" property taxes start hitting Peoria County residents.

Democrat Led Economy Prompts Sudden drop in Caterpillar Stock Today

I'm sure the JS and the WSJ will give a report on what Cat President Doug Oberhelman said on CNBC today about why the U.S. economy is stagnant. And why U.S. businesses weren't hiring. Most of us know why. As Peggy Noonan, Nationally renowned columnist said on 6/7/11, "Obama inherited financial collapse, deficits and debt. He inherited a broken political culture. These things weren't his fault. But through his decisions, (backed by Democrat politician, my comment) he made them all worse".

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Illinois Charter School Common Sense Good News

Dear Merle,

Finally in Illinois, we have the power to say "Yes" to charter schools.

Yesterday Gov. Pat Quinn signed the Charter School Quality Act, a major victory for the school reform movement. Under this legislation, a new state commission will authorize and regulate charter schools – allowing new schools to open in dozens of communities where, until now, charter schools were nonexistent. This is a victory for families and communities who have long sought an alternative to a failing public school.

The Illinois Policy Institute is proud of its role in crafting this legislation, which you can read about here. But this victory would not have been realized without the help of more than a dozen individuals dedicated to creating a better school system here in Illinois. State Sen. Heather Steans deserves special mention, and we applaud Gov. Quinn for turning this legislation into law.

Charter schools having been improving education in Illinois for several years now (read our newly released performance review of downstate and suburban charter schools for the 2009-10 school year) and now, thanks to all of these people, more charter schools will now join others that already exist in Illinois.

Do not be mistaken; we must continue to take steps in improving our state's public education system. But today, we can be assured that the state has taken a bold step in the right direction.

Collin Hitt
Senior Director of Government Affairs
Illinois Policy Institute


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Institute Headlines and Events

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

When You Walk in a Government Office, Everyone Appears to be Busy - Here is One Reason Why

All you Need to Know about Government Bureaucracy
Pythagorean theorem .............. 24 words
Lord's Prayer ..............................66 words
Archimedes' Principle................. 67 words
10 Commandments ............... 179 words
Gettysburg address ................. 286 words
Declaration of Independence ........................................1,300 words
US Constitution with all 27 Amendments ......................7,818 words
US Government regulations on sale of cabbage ....... 26,911 words

SORT OF PUTS THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE, DOESN'T IT?

Why Jobs Grow Under Liberal Left-Wingers

Heather McDonald writing at city-journal.org on 7/14:
California's budget crisis has reduced the University of California to near-penury, claims its spokesmen. "Our campuses and the UC Office of the President already has cut to the bone," the university system's VP for budget and capital resources warned earlier this month, in advance of this week's meeting of the university's regents.

Well, not exactly to the bone.....
The UC at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time vice chancellor for equity, diversity. and inclusion. This position would augment UC's San Diego's already massive diversity apparatus, which includes:

The Chancellor's Diversity Office
The associate vice chancellor for diversity
The faculty equity advisers
The undergraduate student diversity liaison
The graduate student diversity liaison
The chief diversity officer
The director of development for diversity initiatives
The office of academic diversity and equal opportunity
the committee on gender identity and sexual orientation issues
The committee on the status of women
The campus council on climate, culture, and inclusion
The diversity council
The directors of the cross-culture center
The lesbian gay bisexual transgender resource center
The women's center

All these positions come with offices, staff, high salaries, great benefits and funded by the student and your federal and state grant money.

I am now predicting that there will be more people working for the rapidly growing public sector than in the shrinking private sector and that Obama will somehow get those who entered this country illegally to vote. All the thousands of new hires in the IRS, the ten of thousands hired to run and monitor ObamaCare, the growing number of union members, (such as the 160 union workers at Peoria County new Bel-Wood Nursing home), most "safety net" social workers; think Planned Parenthood, 75% of voting liberal college students, most welfare recipients, most of the lobbyists and bureaucrats, the Democrats who would reelect Blago to some governmental office a year or so after his release from prison, (approximately 30%) and 80 of black people, registered and unregistered Democrats (think Chicago); all those with monetary and political association with this presidency, this massive number of recipients of Obama's largess, appears to make Obama's reelection guaranteed.

It will take the most electable Republican; it is my belief no one who has entered their names so far can overcome the tremendous move by the left-wing liberals and others still held under his "spell and charisma", to destroy Capitalism and this Republic.

The old saying about "greasing palms to get votes" has never been more true.

Terribly sad but then people will have jobs; handouts, subsidies and entitlements and the feds can keep printing money.

Few "smart" people thought Castro, Chavez and their ilk could stay in control for long. Obama has the same plans and a very large following of people cut from similar cloth and others who do not read history, past or present.

I have warned many times that things that the average person, caught up in games and circuses, personal problems, etc., is even aware that the government intends to run your business and your life.

A few years ago, pols showed that 30% of the people wanted a form of socialism and a guarantee of being "taken care of" by the government from birth to death.

History shows that doesn't work with Japan being a casualty of late.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Obama Supporters Are NOT Your Friends - Nor Mine

OBAMA'S COLLEGE CLASSMATE SPEAKS OUT

Forwarded to me by a friend. Obama never fooled me nor did he fool a lot of his supporters. Most Obama supporters have benefited and will benefit from his destruction of our Republic and our Capitalists way of life.

Our colleges are contributing to there own eventual down fall through the Socialist agenda too many professors teach. (Read my blog, "Bradley University Left-Wing Democrat Professors", dated 10/04/08. I no longer donate to Bradley). )These lessons taught to eventual teachers lead too many of them to subtly or openly teach your children that Obama's policies are great for this country.

The cheating exposed by Atlanta teachers and administrators is a small example of the failure of our teachers unions, administrators and board members, the NEA and bad programs like NCLB that the Republican and Democrat Administrations forced on the public schools while Obama seeks yet more governmental control over education of our youths. The unions benefit by controlling the boards, especially in cities the size of Peoria. For money and prestige, too many Republicans squawk like chickens yet follow like sheep. (Good example is Ray LaHood, the Hi-Speed rail czar) WRay, where is the money going to come from when the country is on it's way to bankruptcy??

I hope groups like the Tea Party can sort out the politicians who stand by their promises. Probably not, as power corrupts most elected officials and their appointed bureaucrats, many of whom are already corrupted and have been for decades.

Please read this accurate description on the man who would someday like to rule this country like a dictator/king.

Merle


By Wayne Allyn Root , June 6th, 2010
Barack Hussein Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent.
To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing.
He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure,
economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and
our country from within.

Barack Hussein Obama was my college classmate( Columbia University , class of '83).
He is a devout Muslim do not be fooled.
Look at his Czars...anti-business..anti- American.
As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Barack Hussein Obama is
following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University ...
They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system
with government spending and entitlement demands.
Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming.
Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn
the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority
that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted
on to always vote for bigger government.
Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.
Universal health care . The health care bill had very little to do with health
care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and
health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions).
Obama doesn't care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans
will add trillions to the national debt.
What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government .
Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill
in the middle of a depression?
Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with
health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming.
It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control
of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama's biggest contributors.
Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns
NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants.
They will kick-back hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to
Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power.
The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars,
bigger homes and businesses helps Obama "spread the wealth around."
Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who's asking for a 51st state?
Who's asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government
entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression?
Certainly not American taxpayers.
But this has been Barack Hussein Obama's plan all along.
His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.
Legalize 12 million illegal Mexican immigrants.
Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America .
But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted
on to support big government.
Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children,
food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and
eventually Social Security ..
Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go?
It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions -- including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country.
It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could
keep paying union dues.
It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out
(after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions).
A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues).
All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their
bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America ..
The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful.
The ends justify the means.
Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job
creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers,
redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did
nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama).
Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Barack Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition. With the acts outlined above, Barack Hussein Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the
system.
Add it up and you've got the perfect Marxist scheme -- all devised by
my Columbia University college classmate Barack Hussein Obama
using the Cloward and Piven Plan ...
"Correctly attributed" says snopes!
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/overwhelm.asp

Friday, July 08, 2011

The Chicago Tribune Story on Nursing Homes Merits a Read by Local Property Tax Payers

I thought it was quite interesting that the Chicago Tribune, on Tuesday, July 5, 2011, ran a special page called "FOCUS Nursing Homes", page 7 of section A. The full page article by two Tribune reporters is titled, " County-Run Nursing Homes Now a Luxury? Lake County moves to privatize operation of revenue-consuming Winchester House".

In comparing this article with what has been written by any JS reporter or the JSEB, nothing was ever reported that Peoria County started picking up the tab for FICA, IMRF, etc.., starting with $532,000.00 in 2002 and reaching $1,220,000.00 by 2009. That amount deducted from BW"s cost to operate, along with the quarter cent property tax increase collected for BW since 2004, has totaled approximately $20,000,000.00 in property taxes. Just to support the old BW through December 31. 2010. including, as stated, all the indirect costs shifted away from BW in 2002.

These figures are all available through County Administration.

Private nursing homes do not have the luxury of collecting taxes. While some clients may complain of lack of service in the private sector, it has never been more than the usual complaint about health care treatment anywhere. There, too, have been lawsuits and complaints about BW with a $10,100 violations fine reported on 5/14/2009 and a $300,000 BW employee lawsuit settled at about the same time If BW were to be sold, certainly the county could pressure the state to enforce all laws of care and treatment that are on the books.

While Lake County, former employer of Patrick, is debating selling their county nursing home, Peoria has long been preparing to build an approximate $49 million (includes construction, demolition, site preparation, 9% contingency plus an estimated $1.5 million for furniture and equipment). upscale nursing home with a lower capacity of 217 beds. I understand the projected figure quoted by Patrick in writing on 7/29/10, of $6.6 million for site purchase, demolition and site preparation, has been considerably reduced??

The cost of borrowing the greater bulk of the money with a 30 year payback, estimated interest to be paid to the health fund on money borrowed from that account and an estimated 5/ 1/2% interest on the greater bulk of the borrowing means that if the cost of Medicaid and even Medicare must be paid back by the locals, the probable cost of property taxpayer support could rise even more.

For possibly up to 30 years.

Adding my concern is that it is indicated that Peoria County is going to run into a deficit for 2011, a rumor that a new private Alzheimer facility will be built at the vacant NW corner of Sheridan and Northmoor and most importantly, will the now low Medicaid payments may be further reduced by a near bankrupt state. Also, myself and many other believe that Caterpillar will not chose Illinois when it replaces it's now outdated corporate headquarters. Also, a rumor that Caterpillar has asked that it's property taxes be substantially reduced and that fact that property tax collections are still on the decline in Peoria County and may decline further.

I quote from an article in July's IB. "Over the years, I've heard more than one frustrated manager say, "They need to get on board or get out." The article concludes, 'This way of thinking fails to harness the tremendous potential and energy that resistance can spark'. (P. 48) For some of us there needs to be more facts than are presented and statements about "safety nets" and "competing with the private sector" with their own tax dollars..

I also note that Forbes magazines listed, in it's July Issue, it's 50 best Metros for business. The only city in Illinois out of 50 best Metros, was Bloomington, Illinois.

If Winchester House is sold or BW is sold, where would the 165 Medicaid clients go? Same place they went in Sangamon County (and Tazewell County) where there no longer are County run Nursing Home. Or to rapidly growing home care which clients prefer, a study showed that only 1% of the elderly would prefer to die in nursing homes. And the all the local nursing homes, none of whom had waiting lists 8 months ago.

The risk on BW may be greater than the new downtown hotel expansion and the long term deficit of the PRM. ($500,000 a year deficit is projected by the PRM prospectus") and little has been reported on raising the PRM $10 million gap in the Endowment Fund.

Thursday, July 07, 2011

Manual High and Marshal High - Two of Many Public Schools Making Turn Around Progress

The July issue of IB has an article on p. 85 describing how Peoria's Manual High is practicing what many enlightened and concerned citizens believe; that a kid's peers have more influence on a kids life than do parents. The article titled, "A Different Kind of Jury" set up by the Children's Home Association of Illinois, details how "peer" juries can help change the direction of a kids life.

"Peer juries use the philosophy of 'restorative justice' as the cornerstone of the program. the philosophy guides how we respond to misbehavior, conflict and crime", says Program Coordinator Lori Brown. "It says that everyone affected should come together and discuss the situation and how to move forward."

After a review of the large numbers of youth detained and arrested at school, many questions were asked. The peer jury system is modeled after the success of a Chicago High School. The Manual principal and Carl Cannon decided to try the system at Manual. Twelve volunteers were given 2 eight hour training sessions.

The systems appears to be working with the major problem being the lack of funds. As a start up grant, the system may come to an end which, it appears, would be unfortunate. The money appears to have come from the MacArthur Foundation.

It would appear to me, the #150's immense budget, that it wouldn't take much money to keep it running. Take away the special T-shirts, I don't see how this program would take a lot of money. Cannon and the principals are salaried, aren't they?
Good luck.

Here is how the system at Marshall High is working: (Source, Chicago Tribune, Editorial page 16, dated July 5, 2011) "The Chicago Public Schools district replaces school leadership and staff, revamps curriculum, beefs up security, (sounds as if they could use the Peoria Manual system)and brings in extra social workers to revive troubled schools. (Sounds like Marshall could solve the funding problem by bringing in social workers and dispense with the buying of new shirts each time the juries change students)

Having been around for a long time and being a former teacher, nothing said in either of these articles is new to me. It has all been tried but the problem always seems to be "sustainability" with the right people available to guide the students.
Carl Cannon appears to be one of the "right" people.

Anyway, it is always nice to read about positive things being written about our public school systems. If you read the two articles, you will note all pictured are black. Any causal observer will note that most programs to benefit school kids revolve around black participants. Which leads me to comment on the near riot at Taft Homes this week. (Van Auken was wrong, has been wrong too many times to continue to serve as a City Councilwoman. Paul Wilkinson and other like C.J Summers (The Peoria Chronicle blog) are trying to call attention to escalating problems in our community.

Me, I just continue to point out that this community has had it's priorities askew for too long a time and it may be to late to correct now. My cry of, "Wake up, Peoria, has basically gone unheeded by the media and the elite leadership.

So sad. So much good and too much bad.

Bad Social Media Consultants Can Wreck Your Brand

This the title of an interesting column in the July issue of IB. The article is written by Steven Streight, a web content developer, social media strategist and Internet marketing specialist. You can contact him at steven.streight@gmail.com

Steven also is a blogger and has started a new computer talk show.

Sunday, July 03, 2011

DOJ "Fast and Furious" Backpedalling

Forwarded to me by a friend:

Merle

At the exact time the Obama administration was wilfully allowing illegal gun shipments into Mexico, a policy at odds with foreign relations with the Mexican government, the president was castigating the state of Arizona for allegedly interfering with foreign relations with our southern neighbor for passing laws to enforce federal immigration policy... another national security responsibility the administration was smirking to advance a misguided liberal agenda.

I usually recoil from the idea of articles of impeachment, but increasingly, I think they may be warranted. Comment by Kyle Christensen

June 20, 2011
By John Hinderaker

We haven't written much about the Operation Fast and Furious scandal, which reportedly is about to lead to the resignation of the Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The best way to get a handle on the controversy is by reading the Joint Staff Report that was prepared for Congressman Issa's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Senator Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and was released last Tuesday. The report is based on testimony taken from ATF agents and, to a lesser extent, on documents produced to Issa's committee by ATF.
The report relates that in the fall of 2009, the Department of Justice "developed a risky new strategy to combat gun trafficking along the Southwest Border," which was implemented by ATF, a part of the Justice Department. The new strategy was called "Operation Fast and Furious."

The operation's goal was to establish a nexus between straw purchasers of assault-style weapons in the United States and Mexican drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) operating on both sides of the United States-Mexico border.

"Straw purchasers" are people who buy guns from gun shops for the purpose of reselling them to criminal organizations. At the time when Fast and Furious began, a number of straw purchasers were known or suspected in the Southwest. The usual course, prior to that operation, had been to surveil the suspected straw purchasers as they bought weapons and to keep them under surveillance until they tried to sell or otherwise dispose of the weapons. At that point, an arrest would be made and the weapons recovered. Or, in the alternative, they could arrest the straw purchaser for "lying and buying," making false representations in connection with his gun purchases, and try to "flip" the straw purchaser to lead them to other drug gang members. According to the agents who testified before Issa's committee, "ATF's long-standing policy has been not to knowingly allow guns to 'walk' into the hands of criminals." It was this policy that was changed by the Fast and Furious program.

Under DOJ's new strategy, gun shop owners would be given the names of suspected straw purchasers and would report to ATF the serial numbers of guns that they sold to those purchasers. However, the purchasers themselves were not kept under surveillance and no effort was made to stop them from transferring the guns to Mexican drug gangs. On the contrary, such transfers were the hoped-for result, on the theory that identifying the guns when they later turned up at crime scenes in Mexico or on the U.S. side of the border would "create a 'nexus' between the drug cartels and the straw purchasers." Under this theory, approximately 2,000 AK-47s and other weapons were allowed to pass from known straw purchasers into the hands of the drug cartels.

It is difficult to understand how DOJ thought this could be a good idea. Almost the only way in which the illegal firearms were recovered in Mexico was when they were left at crime scenes. ATF would check serial numbers, and sometimes was able to verify that a weapon that had been bought by a known straw purchaser had, indeed, wound up in the hands of a Mexican drug gang. But so what? The authorities already knew that was taking place, and identifying the serial number after the fact would do little or nothing to help identify or catch higher-ups in the drug cartel. Intuitively, the traditional approach described above seems like a much more effective way to roll up a drug gang, which was the stated purpose of Fast and Furious.

Many ATF agents were appalled by, and rebelled against, Fast and Furious. They predicted that guns the agency had purposely allowed to get into the hands of a drug cartel would inevitably be used to commit crimes of violence, potentially against law enforcement officers. But their complaints were suppressed by higher-ups in ATF and DOJ.

The weapons that were permitted to be smuggled into Mexico under Fast and Furious contributed to the drug violence there. According to ATF agents who testified, that made ATF officials "giddy." One agent recounted a conversation with an ATF higher-up in which he asked, "are you prepared to go to a border agent's funeral over this or a Cochise County deputy's over this, because that's going to happen." Her response, in a chilling echo of Lenin, was that "if you are going to make an omelette, you need to scramble some eggs."

The inevitable occurred on December 14, 2010, when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered by a group of illegal aliens near Rio Rico, Arizona. Two AK-47-type weapons found at the scene had serial numbers that showed they were bought by a straw purchaser named Jaime Avila, whose identity as such had been known to ATF since November 2009.

The evidence suggests that the Department of Justice immediately went into cover-up mode. In January 2011, William Newell, Special Agent in Charge of the ATF's Phoenix Field Division, held a press conference in which he announced the indictment of 20 individuals. This was presented as though it represented the roll-up of a drug gang, but in fact, most of the indictments were for the relatively minor offense of "lying and buying," and nearly all of those indicted were straw purchasers whose identities were known to ATF long before Fast and Furious began.

Since then, DOJ has attempted to deflect inquiry by quibbling over whether Fast and Furious involved "gun walking" or not--it did, under any but the narrowest definition, but the terminology is immaterial--and by stonewalling the House committee's requests for documents relating to the program.

The joint staff report whose findings are summarized in this post does not accuse the Department of Justice of bad faith. It assumes that Fast and Furious was a misguided attempt at a new anti-cartel strategy, which had the unintended but foreseeable effect of contributing to the spiraling violence along the Mexican border.

Others are not so sure. At Pajamas Media, Bob Owens speculates that the Obama administration used Fast and Furious to advance a gun control agenda:

The most damning revelations coming out of the hearings on Operation Fast and Furious held by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are the unmistakable indications that the program was never designed to succeed as a law enforcement operation at all. ...

ATF agents testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee could not explain how the operation was supposed to succeed when their surveillance efforts stopped at the border and interdiction was never an option.

ATF Agent John Dodson, testifying in front of the committee, said that in his entire law enforcement career, he had "never been involved in or even heard of an operation in which law enforcement officers let guns walk." He continued: "I cannot begin to think of how the risk of letting guns fall into the hands of known criminals could possibly advance any legitimate law enforcement interest."

The obvious answer is that Gunwalker's objective was never intended to be a "legitimate law enforcement interest." Instead, it appears that ATF Acting Director Ken Melson and Department of Justice senior executives specifically created an operation that was designed from the outset to arm Mexican narco-terrorists and increase violence substantially along both sides of the Southwest border. ...

At the same time in 2009 that federal law enforcement agencies (the ATF, the DOJ, and presumably Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security) were creating the operation that led to the executive branch being the largest gun smuggler in the Southwest [Ed.: This characterization is overblown; the Obama administration did not smuggle guns, but did intentionally permit and encourage the smuggling of weapons that easily could have been confiscated.], the president's team was crafting the rhetoric to sell the crisis they were creating.

On television, in various news outlets, and even in a joint appearance with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Obama pushed the 90 percent lie, implying that 90% of the guns recovered in Mexican cartel violence came from U.S. gun shops.

At the same time they were damning gun dealers in public, the administration was secretly forcing them to provide weapons to the cartels, by the armful and without oversight. More than one gun industry insider suggests that the administration extorted cooperation and silence from these gun shops.

This is an explosive accusation, for which there is no evidence beyond the circumstantial. But Eric Holder's Department of Justice needs to stop stonewalling Issa's committee and start providing clear--among other things, unredacted--answers as to who devised Fast and Furious, and why. In the absence of such cooperation, speculation will inevitably run rampant.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/06/029290.php

Friday, July 01, 2011

Failure in the Black Community By Both Black and White Leadership

An irritated reader reminds me that the last president to send his kids to public schools was President Carter. I remind irritated Yvonne that her man planned to redistribute people's wealth and production to make everyone more equal. Somewhat similair to the failed "communes". As a wealthy man and elected leader of our country, his kids, by attending public schools, could be role models and tutors to the kids of 2nd, 3rd or 4th predominately black failed generations.

The opportunity for everyone to attend free public schools and seek employment without discrimination, has been supported by every president in the past 110 years or so. For the last 50 years, equal opportunity has been there to be seized by those with a desire to be educated, be dependable and learn to work. (and be consistent by coming to work on time as detailed in a recent JS article of a black woman's success). She seized opportunity.

Too many black youths feel as Columnist Leonard Pitts wrote and I published on this site that they would not work for a white. "You Can Do What You Want To Do", published 6/20/07) Also, I suggest some read or re-read, "Why Can't We All Just Get Along", published 6/17,2008; "Racial Profiling", published 9/9/07; Racism and Elections, 10/7/04; "Middle Class Income Stagnation", published 4/28/08 and "Why Black Leadership May Need to Work More closely With White Leadership", 10/7/07.

Or "Multicultural Foolishness", published 10/12/08. In this blog, my last paragraph suggestion is probably wrong. I've also stated my informed opinion on "Diversity" and the most recent Minimum Wage Law which is keeping so many both black and white youths unemployed again this summer. We could have brought back the CCC, one of FDR's best work programs, except for the opposition of the unions and the unwillingness of many to do hard work. Why do you suppose we have so many illegal immigrants doing the "grunt" work in the U.S. while so many blacks and many whites are idle?

All of these blogs can be easily found by entering the title or subject on all of my 1700+ blogs' "Search Bar", upper right hand of the blog.

A couple other irritated people thought I was unfair to the Cannons who do good work in the community. Carl is paid well, works out of taxpayer supported facilities with kids who could be taught the same things Carl teaches in the taxpayer funded public school systems or taught in the some 100 or more Social Agencies and Churches, the Scouts, etc.

If Cannon's wife believes that Obama is doing the job he was elected to do she is reading the wrong polls. Which brings up the point, what are black "leaders" telling and teaching these kids in total?

As to young people incarcerated and clogging the juvenile courts, the record shows that the majority are black despite being a minority in numbers in the County of Peoria. As to sexually transmitted diseases, the health dept. published figures indicate that again minority blacks lead Peoria County to be the leader in sex diseases and pregnancies per capita of any county in the State of Illinois.

As to my journalism? Never took a class, don't get paid for blogging, don't have a proof reader but I make my points. Some "Anonymous and first name" commenter's, which I don't publish get the point but are in denial as are many of the arrogant, elite, wealthy in this country. Donald Trump? Ha, Ha.

As stated when I started this blog in 2004, "This blog is not a 'politically' correct blog. But it comes off as summing up the feelings of a large majority of my readers.