One negative from my new job is that I work at an office in Kansas City, Missouri. The city levies an earnings tax on all people who work inside their city. Next Tuesday, the E-Tax comes up for a vote to renew it for 5 more years. Those in favor and against are spending vast sums to convince citizens to pass or defeat the tax.
The earnings tax really irritates me. Not just because it is a tax and all taxes are irritating. This one is special. The city claims that since everyone who works in the city uses public services such as fire, police and roads, it is fair to levy the tax on everybody. No. It's not.
Residents of cities in Kansas and Missouri somehow manage to fund their public services without charging non-residents who work within their city limits. Why can't Kansas City Missouri do the same? Simple. The city is run by democrats. Has been for years. Democrats cannot spend wisely, and fritter away money on failed TIFs, unneeded street cars, multiple arenas, and entertainment districts that continue to require assistance to remain viable.
In short, the city needs an earnings tax to continue crony spending. Then, when the tax comes up for a vote, the city threatens citizens to lay off police and fire to offset the revenue loss. Wow. What a crock. There is never a thought they could balance their budget by becoming thrifty, and spending the money like it was their own.
As a Kansas resident, the tax is even more irritating. I don't get to vote on whether it is renewed. Not only do I not get to vote on a tax that I pay, each day I see the pro-earnings tax advertising state that 50% of the revenue is paid by those not living in the city. That's me! Talk about flaunting it. Not only is taxation without representation unfair, it is also used to encourage residents of Kansas City to pass it! Tax Kansans to pay half of the city's expenses!
Kansas City, St. Louis, Detroit, and other major cities are suffering under the failed leadership of democrat politicians. Imagine what they could do for America if elected in 2016.
Dinesh D'Souza: “The Democrats want us to believe
they're the party of equal rights and human rights and civil rights. The truth
is the Democrats are the party of slavery, and Indian removal, of broken
treaties and the Trail of Tears, they're the party of segregation and Jim Crow
and lynching and the Ku Klux Klan, they're the party of Japanese internment,
and opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of
1965 and the Fair Housing Bill of 1968. This is their actual history so
what they do is they try to cover it up.”
Rush Limbaugh: "I believe that
liberalism, Democrat Party, whatever you want to call it, is the most
destructive force in America, outside of weather calamities that are acts of
God. It is an organized force. It has an active philosophy with a
multiplicity of objectives, and together they are oriented and aimed at
destroying and tearing down this country."
I believe both quotes are factual. I also believe that my vote or non-vote can help a democrat become president.
As a conservative, Cruz is my choice to return America to traditional values. He has the ideology and intellect to become a president in the mold of Ronald Reagan. I voted for Cruz in the Kansas caucus. He has little chance of becoming president. The press and the republican party will destroy him.
I can vote for John Kasich, Marco Rubio, or Donald Trump. I have given myself permission to vote for someone who does not share my ideology, because I cannot be part of electing a democrat president. Refer to the quotes above.
In 2008, an attractive candidate, Barack Obama, beat an old school republican, John McCain. The margin of victory was comfortable for Obama, as almost all blacks, and many whites felt that by electing the first black president, racial animus in America would finally end. During the first two years of his first term, Obama had majorities in both houses of congress. During that time Obama was able to force through what is believed to be his legacy legislation, the affordable care act, Obamacare.
The mid-term elections of 2010 and 2014 punished Obama and democrats for the direction they were taking the country. The democrats lost control of the house of representative, and lost seats and a filibuster-proof majority in the senate, and then in 2012, their senate majority. The carnage continued down ballot to state houses and local governments. The country sent a strong message - we don't like the new direction. Most of the election winners won by promising to reverse what Obama and the democrats were doing.
Leading up to the election in 2012, Obama continued to be unpopular. Obamacare was negatively impacting families that could not obtain crony-based waivers, the economy was struggling, and Obama's job approval was underwater. Obama was ripe for defeat by Mitt Romney. Romney was a seen as a country club republican and out of touch with the middle class. After a harsh campaign, Romney lost to Obama.
Analysis after the election found the reason Romney lost was not Obama's popularity. Obama did not get as many votes in 2012 as he did in 2008. If Romney had simply convinced the same number of people who voted for McCain in 2008 to vote for him in 2012, we would be nearing the end of president Romney's first term.
Why couldn't Romney pull as many votes as McCain? Many conservative republicans felt that Romney was not conservative. As ridiculous as it sounds, some evangelicals could not bring themselves to vote for a Mormon. It may be happening again.
I have heard conservative pundits, friends and family members say they cannot vote for certain republicans that may be nominated, and may even vote for Clinton or Sanders. Their attitude defies logic. While I am sure they believe they are being high-minded and principled, in fact they are being petulant and childish. Their actions are analogous to a child saying that since they aren't getting their way, they will take their toys and go home. The country's future could be at stake.
It is difficult to believe conservatives would allow a socialist to spend an addition 19 trillion dollars, or an inept former secretary of state to continue the policies of a failed presidency, just so they wouldn't have to hold their nose and vote for someone they feel isn't the best choice. In this context, their choice can only be considered selfish and illogical.
After 8 years of progressive liberalism that has polarized the country, forced us into a recession that is frustratingly slow to recover, brought us gay marriage, Obamacare, open borders, increasing entitlements, and so many other negatives, the thought of another 4 years could be catastrophic. Three supreme court justices may be nominated during this term, and tip the precarious balance toward activist unconstitutional rulings for the next generation.
The stakes are high. This is no time for childish behavior.
Wednesday I purchased a couple of Powerball tickets for the first time ever. The jackpot was at $1.5 billion, so I decided to waste $4. My rational mind knew the tickets would return nothing. It also knew the huge jackpot was a one in 260 million long shot. My chances of being struck by lightening, crushed to death by a falling vending machine, or bitten by a shark in Kansas were greater than winning the Powerball.
I purchased the tickets around 5:00 PM, about 5 hours before the drawing. For those 5 hours, my irrational mind took over and began to plan how I would spend the windfall. I only had 5 hours to decide what I would do with such a large amount of money. I figured after paying taxes and tithing, I would be left with around $600 million.
My first spend would be to give Joe Biden $100 million for his effort to cure cancer. Knowing that Obama didn't pick Biden to lead the effort for his brains, spending other people's money is the only tool Biden has to accomplish anything. Now I'm down to a half billion dollars. That was quick.
My family came next. I decided that I did not want to parse out a million here and a million there, but instead do one big thing that could benefit my entire family. My plan was to buy 10 mansions along the southern coast to become the Bryant compound on Bryant beach. Terri and I would live in one mansion, the big nice one, and my entire family, blood and extended, would have access to the other nine nice but smaller mansions.
Then I realized that living next door to my extended family might not be a great idea in the long term, so I increased my buy to 20 mansions and planned to tear down every other one. That would give us all a little more elbow room. 20 mansions at $5 million each burns another $100 million, a small price to pay for the Bryant compound. Down to $400 million in the bank.
Knowing you can't spend the rest of your life just sitting in your mansion staring out at the ocean (maybe you can), the compound will need an entertainment district. Nothing too fancy, just a bowling alley, a movie theater, a KC-style BBQ joint, and a music bar. If other entertainment is desired, we can just jet to the nearest coastal city with a tourist trap and night life. So that's an entertainment district for $50 million, a Learjet for $25 million and a private runway for $25 million. Down to $300 million in the bank.
Next a car pool. A dozen Hummers, a couple of Corvettes and a Lamborghini for the weekends should do. That's less than a million bucks. What a bargain. We can jump straight to the annuity used to pay cleaning staff in perpetuity. Say, one maid per mansion equipped with a lifetime supply of Swifters. Another $20 million spent, with $279 million left. Maybe it's time to be frugal and put the rest in the bank. Don't want to be too flamboyant.
It has become apparent that, in addition to her unlikability, Hillary Clinton may add indictments to her presidential resume before the election. If she were ordinary, the indictment would have already been delivered based on her reckless handling of confidential and secret material as secretary of state. Since she is considered political royalty, the FBI is being especially cautious. Good. When the indictments come, I want them to be ironclad. How can they not after learning that she asked a subordinate to strip away classification marking before faxing a heavily redacted document to her private unsecure email system.
The question that will remain is whether an unlikable democrat charged with one or more felonies is still electable. She may be fine based on the unawareness of a typical democrat who just wants their fair share at America's teat. But I still has enough faith in the average citizen to hope that pending felonies will hurt her chances. It will become apparent that she is officially unelectable when we see the Plan B emerge from the democrat party. I wonder what it will be? Some scenarios are downright frightening.
Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren enter the race, or more concerning, Joe enters and names Elizabeth as his VP. Name recognition alone would propel them to the top of the polls. Polls don't elect, so the problem they will have is no organization or ground game unless Hillary donates hers. I doubt she would.
Michelle enters the race and runs as her husbands third term. That could be hard to beat since she is liked more than Hillary or Barack. Personality alone could be enough to make a strong run.
Barack cites a national emergency to ask that the constitution be superseded and allow him to run for term #3. Hey, his job approval numbers aren't that much lower than they were in 2012. He could theoretically do it again. Roosevelt was elected 3 times, so there is precedence.
The worst case scenario could be that Biden, Clinton, Michelle or some other old wrinkled democrat add Barack as their VP. Then, after the election, the old wrinkled democrat steps down for health reasons.
All four of these scenarios are unconstitutional, but what have we learned in the past two years? The Constitution can be bent if it suits a progressive liberal purpose. I believe the least likely scenario is that Bernie Sanders gets the nomination. The mainstream media constantly calls Donald Trump unelectable, or disastrous to the republican party, but fail to mention that Bernie is that and more to the democrats.
Bernie is a socialist. Bernie would over-regulate, over-tax and over-control every aspect of the private sector. Donors would abandon the democrat party if Bernie was the nominee. It won't happen.
What will happen is Plan B. There is one in development.
: a course of formal proceedings (as legal proceedings) carried out regularly and in accordance with established rules and principles —called also procedural due process
: a judicial requirement that enacted laws may not contain provisions that result in the unfair, arbitrary, or unreasonable treatment of an individual —called also substantive due process
We are losing our rights. The best example is in current events, Barack Obama's over-reach in using executive orders to establish the gun control he cannot get using the legislative process. Obama sounds reasonable. He says he wants to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill or known terror suspects. So do I.
But to understand the abuse Obama is now permitting, consider this.
First, the right to bear arms is an enumeratedconstitutional right, specifically written into the 2nd amendment, and has been reviewed by the supreme court as applying to individual gun ownership. It is not an un-enumerated right, such as the right to choose, or the right to privacy which are implied by enumerated rights.
Now, if I had a nephew-in-law who is completely nuts, (and I do), I could call the FBI and report that he should not be allowed to buy a gun. That would be enough to put his name on a list and effectively strip him of his 2nd amendment constitutional rights. This would be done without the due process normally required to apply a restriction or penalty.
No-fly lists are more egregious. While I might have good reason to report my nephew-in-law to authorities, any name on a no-fly list is placed there arbitrarily by a government bureaucrat checking a box. The late senator Ted Kennedy was repeatedly added to no-fly lists due to his name connected to a known terrorist. Since there is no legal process required to add a name to the list, a bureaucrat would effectively be empowered to restrict a constitution right to any citizen without due process. This is a process ripe for abuse just as was exposed in the IRS practice of rejecting conservative groups for 401c status.
With the executive order, Obama has crossed another line by authorizing unfair, arbitrary, or unreasonable treatment of citizens without due process. It won't stand, but will sound like he is doing something important.
When looking for a prediction of the next president, I am the last person you want to believe. I was confident Mitt Romney would beat Obama and avoid his disaster of a second term. Nobody was more shocked on election night to see Obama, the worst president to ever hold the office, win handily. While Romney wasn't a dream candidate, he wasn't Obama and that should have been enough. And as we now know, Romney was right about the 40% who will vote democrat regardless of the candidate. I suppose there is probably another 40% who will vote republican regardless of who gets the nomination.
This should be an election that throws out the party who controlled the white house for the past 8 years. Obamacare is still widely detested. Obama has low job approval and is not trusted by the majority. The economy and unemployment are not healthy, regardless what the jiggered indicators show. US foreign policy is a wreck. US security and national defense is weak. By all rights, the party in power should be punished.
But this year is different. Whether that difference costs the democrats the white house is unknown. We know that New York and California will give all their electoral college votes to whoever has the (d) beside their name. That is a tall hill to climb. It means that whoever has the (r) will need to run the table in the South, pick up most of the Midwest, and get half the swing states. And that just makes it close.
Would Trump be the best candidate to take those states? How about Cruz or Rubio? Maybe, but whoever the (r) candidate is, we know they will face Hillary (assuming she isn't under indictment).
Indited or not, Hillary is a seriously weak candidate. She is irrevocably attached to Benghazi, Iran, illegal email servers, Clinton Foundation improprieties, serial lying, incompetent foreign policy, Whitewater, Barack Obama, and a philandering husband. What a mess. A mess that would sink any other candidate. How she has a chance to get the nomination is, in itself, miraculous.
But what is our choice? Trump, Carson and Fiorina are outsiders whose appeal is a belief they are different - outsiders not tainted by Washington. But is that enough? Insiders we send to Washington with a specific mandate seem to change once they arrive. Remember Paul Ryan, the deficit hawk who camped out in his DC office creating a comprehensive plan to a balanced budget? That was then. This is the same Paul Ryan who as Speaker of the House just passed the most bloated budget bill ever, one that funds everything we sent him and others to Washington to stop. Is there one choice that is different than another? I am beginning to doubt it.
Recent national elections seem to always pit a conservative or moderate candidate against a candidate who promises the government will take care of everyone. Essentially, the choice is between an adult and Santa Claus. It is hard to beat Santa Claus.
I have a very intelligent conservative acquaintance who has offered to bet dinner that Hillary will be the next president. He doesn't like Hillary, but just like in 2008, believes Santa Claus wins over pragmatism. If I just look at Hillary, I want to take that bet. She is so flawed. I did make the bet in 2008, taking Romney over Obama. I paid up by buying dinner, as we both cried over our food.
The party of Santa Claus is at it again. Trillion dollar plans are given to offer free college, a cure for Alzheimer's, tax cuts for the middle class, with no regard to how we pay for them other than taxing the rich. Pure Santa Clausism (I just made that up). When an adult provides facts and perspective, they are disregarded as unpopular or uncomfortable. The following clip is a great example of how facts and logic are disregarded when countering populism. Cavuto does a great job explaining why a free college education for everyone, student loan forgiveness and a $15 per hour minimum wage isn't feasible.
I am betting that Neil's message was lost on Keely. I bet she votes for Hillary.
