Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Bloggers Keep Free Political Speech

FEC Rules Exempt Blogs From Internet Political Limits – In a unanimous vote yesterday, the Federal Election Commission left unregulated almost all political activity on the Internet except for paid political advertisements. But perhaps most important, the commission effectively granted media exemptions to bloggers and other activists using the Web to allow them to praise and criticize politicians, just as newspapers can, without fear of federal interference.


Court Rules Lawmaker Illegally Leaked Tape – A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) violated federal law by turning over an illegally taped telephone call to reporters nearly a decade ago. In a 2-1 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling that McDermott violated the rights of Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was heard on the 1996 call involving then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

The court ordered McDermott to pay Boehner more than $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and at least $600,000 in legal costs.

Free Speech or Selective Protection of the First Amendment or Waste of Money?

Having been the kid who staged a walkout at my junior high school because we couldn’t wear walking shorts in 95 degree weather, I have to say I should support the right of kids to wear anti war t-shirts, if that is their way of expressing themselves. I don’t. Now that I’m a grumpy old person footing the tax bill for this debate, I’m very much in favor of telling them to shut up and digest a little more math and science.

Schools are walking a slippery slope here as in the recent Thurston controversy over the confederate flag. Our Thurston students get racial sensitivity training while Whidbey students get the ACLU coming to the rescue to protect their first amendment right? How about those math scores kiddos?

Does giving the OK to protest the war on T-shirts also bring other political topics into the fray? Can students protest gay marriage? Can they poke fun at unions? No, that’s not what we are funding schools for. Once again, I have to default to the dictatorial power of administrators to maintain a focus on learning. I’m betting none of these kids even know which districts they are in, how their Senators and Reps voted and are pretty much eating up MSM anti war sentiment.

I’ll care what you think, when you foot the bill for your own education- but right now you are doing it on my dime. At the risk of rambling, I think it’s time Democrats explore the opportunity of taxing the unending spending power of our youth to fund these places of learning. Clearly they have no value for my dollar.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Government now subsidizes union political campaigns

Gov employees can now deduct political contributions

The Washington Federation of State Employees celebrate the gutting of Initiative 134 (paycheck protection) which prohibits the state from making payroll deductions to a political fund.

“…SHB 2780, the WFSE/AFSCME-initiated Voluntary Payroll Deduction Bill, allows state employees to make voluntary payments to union-designated funds through payroll deduction. This will help WFSE/AFSCME members who make voluntary payments to the AFSCME PEOPLE fund.”

A vicious cycle is at work as union and government monopolies work hand-in-hand. Government employee unions take money from workers to put hand-picked politicians in office. The politicians then give the unions concessions at the bargaining table, which increase the power of the unions and allow the unions to keep the politicians in office. Will it ever end?

Cofchin has not forgotten....

Steve Cofchin is running against Adam Smith in the 9th Congressional District. You can visit his web page here: http://www.cofchinforcongress.com/.

While perusing his web page, the donations page perked my interest. While he asks for donations, he encourages campaign donors to contribute to a number of listed charities. I have never seen an overture like this before and it speaks for itself. Read it below:

“Thanks for your help in electing Steve Cofchin as our representative in the 9th Congressional District. The lifeblood of any campaign is money, and Steve appreciates the dollars you invest in this campaign. As important as this campaign is, Steve hasn’t lost sight of the importance of helping others in need. Therefore, he is asking that you consider investing a portion of what you invest in his campaign to one (or more) of the charities listed below. By investing in both the Cofchin for Congress campaign and a local charity, we will help Steve meet his goal to make the 9th Congressional District a stronger place to live, work, and play.”

Friday, March 24, 2006

Adam Smith: When you are done pandering to tragedy, could you get us some road money?

Congressman Adam Smith is up for election this year. The congressman has pretty much flown under the media radar with little or no presence in the press except for jumping on some tragedy bandwagons. It’s time to bring a little attention to the congressman’s lack of effort in doing much of anything besides pandering to the DV money train and denouncing Republicans.

A key issue voters should be asking is why Washington is a red headed step child when it comes to federal transportation dollars. While Adam Smith is very attuned to the crisis of what happens when a vindictive, unstable and highly volatile woman pushes her police chief husband over the edge in a divorce and custody battle (see Adam’s press release pandering to the Crystal Brame murder). He’s also pretty attuned to the Democrat past time of beating up the president. When it comes to getting us some highway relief, there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Write this down, Democrat or Republican- you can literally use pandering to tragedy as a yardstick of how ineffective a candidate is at serving the region that elected them.

With the un-winning team of Cantwell and Murray (who also burned effigies of David Brame) Washington is nearly dead last in federal funding for “port states” in terms of transportation dollars. In fact many non-port states ranked higher than Washington. All of the above DC-o-crats have no strategy on energy policies, except to denounce the Republican strategy.

In fact, one of the first things I notice absent on Adam’s page is the lack of any real strategy or results in bringing transportation dollars to a state which is literally a supply chain to the western inland. He tells us that transportation is a big issue for the 9th (because with another 9 cents a gallon being jacked from us at the pump, we didn't already know that) Adam- here’s another one you can put on your page for economic development: Ice cream has no bones, but we didn't elect you to tell us that. Thanks for nothing.

When Adam brags about bringing $41M of federal dollars into the 9th, remember that this district contains 2 ports (which service both commercial and military cargo) and the pie was around $30 BILLION.

Again, thanks putting Washington at the back of the class. At least the parents of Crystal Brame will support Adam in the next election, though if I were a cop, I’d think twice about doing so- since the result of all this pandering is that even a false allegation of DV means you will be fired from your job in law enforcement.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Another school bucks collective bargaining thugs for performance bonus pay

While Washington wrestles with WASL, elementary school teachers in Lake Charles, La. buck union thugs and get a $2,600 performance bonus in merit pay for actually defining and meeting metrics according to WSJ 3/23 (B1-Market Place).

Sorry Thurston teachers, because of the collective bargaining agreements in place here in Washington, you all pay for the great benefits your union’s prevent you from having. In other words, districts can't even explore the bonus system because it would basically expose your union to be as useless as it really is.

Not working is easier than working

More good examples from our friends in France. Earlier in this blog I referenced an interview of Jack Welch noting his positive thinking with regards to the US economy in the coming years compared to the EU. I think he’s right, who in their right mind would want to open a business in France?

Of course Thurston County can’t be far behind in their anti-business line of thinking. I just got notice of a hearing from the Thurston County Health dept that after screwing homeowners in Henderson Inlet for owning septic tanks, they also want pumpers to finance the County's money minting operation through increased permit fees as well.

I have to hand it to them for greed; it's much more profitable to charge everyone for collecting the same data 2 or 3 times than to just do it once for last year's permit fee.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Supreme Court Case Questions Systemic DV Fraud:

When I say systemic, I mean fraud by State agencies that believe men are DV perpetrators unless there is evidence proving otherwise. The quickest way to gain the upper hand in divorce or custody battles is to claim DV. All legal expenses for the accuser are picked up by the state, and the defendant has to spend $10-20k proving they are innocent.

Why would any government agency be so eager to falsely convict someone of a crime they didn’t commit? Could there be a money trail at risk here? While I have never been accused of such a crime, I know of at least case in Thurston where a false accusation (which was later retracted) turned into a felony.

As in the Roe-vs-Wade for men argument and several other father's rights arguments raised on this blog, the heart of this case goes back to violating equal treatment under the US constitution.

update: To give you an idea of the magnitude of false accusations in 1997 and 1998 respectively there were 5,359 and 5,252 reported cases of demostic violence in Seattle; 2,592 and 3,536 were actually charged. If you were charged you MUST be guilty of something right? Check out the money train for the special DV court in Seattle. If there is any doubt how this applies to Thurston, check out what our county commissioners just did in today's Zero

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Recommended Viewing; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

With the same garbage coming out of Hollywood for a few years now, I’ve taken to Netflicking old movies. Anyone following politics or aspiring to be in politics should give Mr Smith a viewing.

Many characteristics of the machine vs Mr. Smith bear a striking resemblance to the Gregoire-Union machine- including the press. I wonder how long until men in big trucks come to run over my PC.

Rural rezone workgroups report out

As part of the rezone plan, the county assembled workgroups to discuss potential options to comply with the GMA ruling. Landowners are generally disgruntled by past moves made by county and environmentalists; environmentalists don't seem terribly concerned with other people's nest egg.

The workgroup report out is a worthwhile read for the well informed on this issue. It is good to see landowners are stepping up. Having watched this progress for a while now, many in the Olympia area don’t have a problem devaluing someone’s property by 100k-900k to make themselves feel like they are protecting something.

Why the hell not? They didn't pay anything for it and aren't stuck with the tax bill twice a year.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Frank Chopp, welcome to the blame game

Speaker of the house Frank Chopp ignores Dem. voting record, blames the state pension shortfall on Rossi.

Chopp in the Zero's capital chat "The skipping of payments was started by Dino Rossi several years ago and we need to get caught up, but if you look at it we're doing quite well compared to other states and private companies, but we need to do better."

Frank has a highly selective memory since the Democrat controlled legislature voted to defer payments last session against an outcry by the Republican minority.

Sorry Frank, The state is not doing better than private companies. When companies default on pensions, it's the first and last steps going into or out of bankruptcy. Are you confirming that your spending habits are bankrupting this state?

Monday, March 13, 2006

Men’s right to choose would dramatically cut cyclical poverty

When everyone has the same choices, society wins

Since child support is supposed to be for the benefit of the child, take a close look at the “best interest of the child" in out of wedlock pregnancies.

Never Never Never is keeping a newborn child with a single parent who cannot afford that child without support [from a person who does not want to be a parent] in the child’s best interest. Would we allow a person who cannot afford to support a child adopt one? No, not in a million years.

Statistically these kids are being set up for a lifetime of bad times because society chooses to indulge the whims of young women who don’t even have the capability to care for themselves, let alone a family. Statistically having a kid out of wedlock (even with support) is a lifetime of bad news for these accidental mothers. Open the doors of choice and you’ll start seeing a lot more adoptions and a lot more “endings” to seemingly infinite loops of cyclical poverty.

As in most cases, I don’t expect the courts come to a decision that even remotely aligns with the constitution, but I am glad the case is bringing the topic up for discussion.

McClatchy purchases more seats on Titanic

Print Media: A bad buy at any price

While few will actually mourn the passing of MSM, consolidation is a pretty good indicator of declining margins in any struggling industry. As Google and a few others begin to put the screws to local media markets, there will be fewer ads hogging up space and getting in the way of liberal propaganda.

The good news, as the blogosphere is already indicating, the propagation of information will be a lot more interesting, if not transparent in the new media outlets.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Gregoire 1 :: Big Tobacco 2

There was a terrific article in Wednesday’s WSJ on the effect of state lawsuits on tobacco sales. Part of the settlement our former AG won (score 1 Gregoire) for us was that payments to the states would scale with sales. Well guess what is happening due to the uneven playing field created by the settlement? Sales are decreasing around the US.

So after making RAI and MO two of the safest investments in my portfolio (score 1 tobacco), Gregoire can also take credit for the payments decreasing (score 2 tobacco) because the companies in the settlement are losing market share in the US to smaller and more agile competitors.

The silver lining is that while liberals around the world love to hate America…they also happen to love our tobacco and sales are great everywhere else. Funny that GM can’t take a lesson or two here.

You really have to hand it to our Governor; she’s far more of a golf course Republican than anyone can accuse our President of being. Tax the hell out of the poor with one of the steepest gas taxes in country and make a deadly product even more profitable. Oedipus couldn't have planned it better.

Incidentally RAI was up over 2 points today while the broader market was in the toilet.

Christine- is there anyway you can make HAL stock go up too?

Protection order would not have saved woman with 3rd grade education from attack

Keep in mind, I’m a conservative sticking up for the guy who just ofted himself in a C-store. There is more to this story than what you will read in the paper or see on the 10:00 news.

There is no excuse for pulling a gun on anyone outside of self-defense so this guy gets no pass from me on his actions. When someone is over the edge, the law doesn’t really matter anymore, but 9 of 10 newspapers and talking heads at 10:00 will lead you to believe we should dispense protection orders from gumball machines, when it really doesn’t make a difference. You can expect the usual quotes from the conductors of the federally funded DV money trains. The Times clues you into a few more facts, the Zero just grabbed the story from the wire and readers can slap the appropriate liberal stereotypes of villain and victim to meet their agendas.

There are groups that are actively trying to equalize the court system for fathers, and what this guy did gives extremists on the other side a lot of fuel for hysteria and enables them to set up the family court system to allow DV accusations to be an even more effective tool to tip the balance of power in divorce and custody battles. However, the facts in this case point to the courts royally screwing him over at every step leading up to the convenience store.

To quote liberal Bruce Springsteen “Now I ain't sayin' that makes me an innocent manBut it was more `n all this that put that gun in my hand”

Wouldn’t it be crazy if we all had to pay $20,000 to prove we were not this man? Well the fact is we already do.

Read the story carefully. The facts are:

  • This man had already been prevented from seeing his kids for 6 years.
  • The woman moved away from the man to prevent him from seeing his kids and to make it more difficult to fight for them in court.
  • The man moved to Washington to fight for his kids, not to stalk her.
  • The court said he had to pay for psychological evaluations to see his kids (odd that the woman with a 3rd grade education didn’t have to pass any exam for custody).
  • The accusations of domestic violence came out AFTER the divorce – her lawyer claimed she didn’t know there were laws preventing someone from beating the hell out of her. In other words, her lawyer was attempting to use exploit DV laws to exacerbate the situation- no media outlet has found any evidence of abuse prior to this. This woman might have had a 3rd grade education, but she and her lawyer knew how to work the system.

Again, I'm not making excuses for the guy. The list of issues you can solve with a gun in a convenience store is extremely short. Standing back from the case, there are some unanswered questions.

  • Isn't it odd that the woman with a 3rd grade education didn't have to take any psychological exams to get custody of the children, but the father with a PHD does? Most folks would have trouble digesting that ruling if it happened to them.
  • The man hadn't seen his children in 6 years, but was still fighting in court to get custody?
  • He tracked her down like a control freak, but then went to court to have to parenting plan?
  • Many death threats, but nothing recorded, nothing written, nothing with witnesses. Indulge me here on why she was unable to present any evidence- they didn't just come in from the bush land where the tape recorder was fresh out of batteries.
  • No prior history of DV?

Some things just aren't adding up here. In fact the only thing that adds up is that she landed in front of a Snohomish County commissioner and we can thank the woman’s attorney for that coincidence.

Let's hear how many times that hearing was canceled until "the right" commissioner was scheduled to hear the case.Leaving the state when you have kids without ANY modification of the parenting plan even with no custody and NO record of violence is also known as kidnapping. But that is completely fine in Washington's family courts. I'm surprised she didn't seek out Thurston's courts, which is where she ought to have come shopping for a protection order with no evidence.

Hmm, unfortunately, I missed this. Should have been paying more attention. But remember, the Thurston County GOP convention is going to be on April 29 at South Puget Sound Community College. Delegates will adopt a platform and elect delegates to the state convention.

County Republicans hash out political positions - Caucus meeting in Lacey addresses planks for proposed GOP platform

In a basement room of Faith Assembly of Lacey, Republicans talked about what they believe in.

At their base, the Republican and Democratic caucus meetings occurring across Thurston County this week are acts of officialdom — they allow precincts to elect delegates to the county convention and make recommendations on the party platform.But they’re also an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to discuss what they stand for, what the core party values should be.

Democrats had their meetings Saturday; Republicans took their turn Tuesday night.

Monday, March 06, 2006

Nazis? I hate Illinois Nazis

Everybody loves a good villain and mainstream media bites on this one hook, line and sinker every time. Olympians are all about free speech, except of course when it’s a point of view they disagree with and then they have to plan a counter demonstration and warn each other not to riot and cause massive amounts of property damage. The Nazi’s got nothing on you clowns!

From a marketeer’s standpoint I have to chuckle at how 8 people can get the panties of so many in a bunch with just an announcement that they “might” show up and demonstrate.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Precinct Caucus Meetings

Democrat Meetings: On March 4th (Saturday) at 2pm, Democrats will meet in local precinct caucuses. For information including locations, go to the state Democratic Party's website:
http://www.wa-democrats.org/caucus/faqlist.php

Republican Meetings: On March 7th (Tuesday) at 8pm, Republicans will meet in their local precinct caucuses. For information including locations, go to the state Republican Party's website:
http://wsrp.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=682