Obamacare for Dummies

Posted on October 27, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard 2

The Affordable Health Care Act

History

In March of 2010 the Affordable Health Care Act (ObamaCare) became law. The bill passed the House by a vote of 206 – 212, and the Senate by 60 – 39. Not one Republican congressman or senator voted for ObamaCare. 70% of Americans were opposed to the new law. But hey, the Democrats are smarter than everybody else. They know what’s best for us.

Features

If you like your insurance plan, you can keep your insurance plan.
- Well, maybe not. But you will have many good plans to choose from.
  - Unless the exchanges collapse because the insurers are bleeding money from mandated cost items. Actually, you will probably get stuck with very few plan choices from very few (maybe only one) insurance company.
If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
- But that’s only if your doctor chooses to accept your new insurance plan that pays him a lot less money and puts all kinds of requirements and restrictions on him. It’s pretty unlikely.
Insurance premiums will go down $2500 per year
- And then they will go way, way up. Because
  - kids stay on your policy until age 26
  - people with expensive pre-existing conditions are welcomed to the pool
  - plans are required to provide more benefits, many of them for “free”
  - competition is reduced because only a few very large companies can manage the complexity and cost of implementing the government plans
  - new people on the plans, especially those plugged into Medicaid, will have much higher claims experience
  - oh, by the way, deductibles and co-pays will go crazy. You may have to pay the first $14,000 of medical bills.
There will be no tax increases due to ObamaCare
- The only way citizens can afford ObamaCare is if the government pays a huge portion of the sky-high premiums as a subsidy. So the cost to the taxpayers is enormous.
  - But who cares? The government doesn’t have to raise taxes. They can just print more money and add to the national debt.
  - Oh, and if you don’t have insurance, you will have to pay a penalty. But that’s not a tax. Even though it is in the tax code, assessed and collected by the IRS. The Supreme Court said so – it must be true.
ObamaCare will not add to the national deficit or debt
- Umm, well. Sorry. That’s a fib. See above.
There will be very few Americans who do not have health insurance
- Unless healthy young people decide they can’t or don’t want to pay for ObamaCare and decide to just pay the fine. Or not pay the fine. Whatever.
- And then there are the people who find enrollment in ObamaCare so complex they don’t even try.
ObamaCare will not be given to illegal immigrants at taxpayer expense
- The government will, however, provide free ObamaCare to undocumented Democrat voters.

Conversion to HillaryCare in November 2016

The government tried, but ObamaCare didn’t work very well, so they are going to put you all on single-payer national health insurance like Canada. They didn’t intend for this to happen. Really. It’s just one of those things. But Hillary has a great new plan:
- Long waiting lists for care. This has been perfected by the VA Hospitals. You may have to wait a year or so for that procedure. This reduces cost because after a year many patients have assumed room temperature and no longer need care.
- Your doctor will be a kid from Bangladesh who came here on an H1B visa. He speaks English, but you still won’t understand a word he says. This reduces cost because he will work for $20k per year, and you will give up trying to get well because you won’t know what’s wrong with you.
- 80% of hospital wards will be converted to maternity units. Our new undocumented Democrats do tend to have a lot of babies.

Quiz (True or False)

Adding eight years of children’s coverage to a health care plan will reduce plan costs.
Allowing people with pre-existing conditions to join a health care plan at the same premium level will reduce plan costs.
Anything the government does will cost less and work better than it does in the private sector.
Doctors don’t mind making less money or being told what to do.
It doesn’t matter if premiums go way up as long as the government is paying for most of the cost (after all, if the government is paying for it, it’s free).

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!

School Choice – The Free Market Solution

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Most Americans now accept and believe that school choice is a good thing. But the largest teachers’ union, the NEA, still adamantly opposes allowing public funds to follow the student to the school of his choice. And the political clout of the teachers’ union remains the biggest impediment to improvement in education.

I am a disciple of free-market economics. Economics steers every human undertaking. It is ubiquitous in every aspect of our daily lives and has been since the dawn of man. Every adult on Earth awakens each day and sets out to improve the standard of living for himself and his family. Nothing is more basic and necessary to our sustained well-being than knowledge of the economic forces that create wealth.

The law of supply and demand is as universally accepted as the law of gravity. When the supply of something is scarce, it is more valuable. And when something is valuable and in high demand, more of it will be produced. In a true free market consumers will always choose the product that best meets their needs at the lowest price, and the profit motive for meeting this demand guarantees the continuous improvement of products. Free competition for that profit completes the equation.

Free-market supply and demand has brought us smart phones, better cars, nicer homes – comfort, safety and wealth. In a free market profits and wealth are generated as the quality of products improve and prices go down. So why hasn’t the quality of education improved in our country, the epicenter of the free market, despite massive spending? Clearly it’s because education has been removed from the free market.

When a purchase decision is made by someone other than the consumer, the product is unlikely to be what the consumer wants and needs. Inevitably, educational decisions made by government officials, rather than parents, will not yield optimal results. Our nation’s educational system is not keeping pace with other countries, and our employers say they can’t find enough employees with basic literacy and math skills. Most fingers point the blame at our traditional (non-choice) schools.

Times have changed. Technology has largely eliminated the challenges of distance and time that established the traditional school model primarily still in use today. As traditional brick-and-mortar neighborhood schools slide toward obsolescence, the ultimate free-market school choice, home schooling, shows rapid growth. For-profit and non-profit alternative and technical schools are in such demand that exotic lottery algorithms are used to determine which families will win admission. Private schools enjoy continued enrollment growth. The traditional government school is now the last resort for most families.

While the concept of school choice is broadly supported by parents, progress in changing the way education is funded has been slow. In most states home-school and private-school families must still pay taxes for traditional schools that they do not use. States and districts that support school choice generally fund them with tax dollars through direct allocation, vouchers or scholarships, although at lower rates than they fund traditional schools. The majority of states and districts still fund only traditional public schools.

Education cannot be removed from economic reality. The most reliable and quickest tools for process improvement in education are the same time-tested economic incentives that drive the entire world to higher standards of living every day. The consumers of the education system, parents, must be trusted to make the right purchasing decision for education, the same way they are trusted to buy the right vegetables or the right car to suit their needs.

Until the NEA and the political leaders they financially support agree to allow school funding to travel (or stay home) with the student, education will remain outside the free market, in denial of the proven economic leverage that improves results, lowers costs, and increases standards of living.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I study nuclear science
I love my classes
I got a crazy teacher, he wears dark glasses
Things are going great, and they’re only getting better
I’m doing all right, getting good grades
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades

The Future’s So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades) – Timbuk 3

The “Unsung Heroes” Help Poor and Minorities – Hillary Calls Them “Deplorables”

Posted on October 14, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

hvac%20contractor I was visiting with my young HVAC guy after he installed a new air conditioner in one of my rental houses. Actually, it was more like negotiating than visiting. He said he gave me a good deal, and I chuckled, “I know you did, but I have to go through the routine.” I was happy to write the check – he more than earned it.

Then he said something that gave me pause. “I know you guys can afford to pay me, but you know a lot of the people I work for can’t.”

We live in South Carolina. It’s hot. Air conditioning is not a luxury, it is a necessity of life. I know people lived in the South before air conditioning, but honest to God, I don’t know how. We moved here from Montana where we built a new log home and didn’t even consider putting in air conditioning. This is different. In South Carolina I would put air conditioning right up there with food and shelter.

He told me about a service call he made last month to repair an air conditioner for an African American grandmother with five kids in her house that belong to her daughter, who is a heroin addict. “She told me about her utility bills, and other bills, and taking care of the kids, and doing it all on $500 a month from the county plus food stamps. It was 96 degrees. I knew she couldn’t afford to pay me, so I just ‘ate’ the bill. ”

I have not felt very good about my country lately. There’s a lot of ugly stuff going on. But this young man did a lot to restore my confidence in our future.

“I usually don’t charge somebody like that,” he said. “I mean, you see what’s going on, and you just have to do what you can, you know? I don’t mind giving up my labor, I can always just work harder. But the cost of parts keeps going up and up. I have hundreds of dollars in parts in these repair jobs.”

My HVAC guy is your average American small business owner. He works long, hard hours. He invests most of his profits in tools, a truck, paying his help, and keeping up his education and certification. In the hot summer he works around the clock. If somebody needs help at 9:00 pm, he answers the phone. He didn’t go to college. He goes to church every Sunday, but half the time he is on a service call that afternoon. His kids don’t have fancy tennis shoes, and he can’t afford the time or cost of a Disney cruise. Yet he is one of the “Deplorables” Hillary Clinton looks down on. Even worse, he owns a business – which, to Democrats, makes him a greedy, selfish racist who got rich on the backs of the poor. He’s the guy Obama sneered at: “You didn’t build that business.”

The truth is, he DID build that business, and he cares a hell of a lot more for the poor, and minorities, than Hillary Clinton does, or Barack Obama, or anybody who votes for them and their Democrat friends.

And yes, he said, “I am going to vote for Donald Trump.” He told me he had not voted for years, but this time he has to. “The first thing I heard Trump say was, ‘I am paying for my own campaign, nobody bought me, and I can’t be bribed.’ That was all I needed to hear.” And that certifies his status as one of Hillary’s “Deplorables”.

The sad thing is, the grandmother whose air conditioning repair bill he ‘ate’, and the addicted mother, and most of their friends and relatives, and all of the liberals who pretend to care about them but never do anything about it, are going to vote for Hillary and the Democrats.

The Deplorables out there doing real acts of charity and love every day, and not asking for anything in return – they are the unsung heroes.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

While others long to steal the spotlight
You work your magic quietly
‘Cause your not in it for the glory
The love you give comes naturally

Unsung Heroes – Terri Clark

Here’s one of my favorite country artists, Terri Clark from Medicine Hat, Albera. Give a listen.

Corrupt News Media Leave Americans In the Dark

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard 1

Anderson Cooper, of CNN, and Martha Raddatz, of ABC News, moderate the second presidential debate. Photo by Jim Bourg, AP

I asked my friend, a well-educated, successful business professional, if she saw the second Trump / Clinton debate last night. She hadn’t. She works long hours on the dead run, and has been caring for family members with health issues as well.

I know she is interested in politics, so I was giving her a “CliffsNotes” report of the political slugfest. When I got to the part where Trump revealed how Hillary laughed about successfully defending the man who brutally raped a 12-year old girl in Arkansas, her jaw literally dropped. “What? Why haven’t I ever heard about this?” The news she has picked up while on the run always describes Hillary Clinton as a champion and defender of women’s rights.

I explained how the news media avoids stories that might harm any Democrat, especially one as powerful as Hillary Clinton. The days when reporters and editors went to great lengths to double-verify facts, and important news stories were never spiked, are long gone. News outlets now report what fits their left-wing political ideology, or will enhance ad revenue.

This episode is by no means an isolated example of an important, but willfully hidden, news story. It was first reported years ago and was revisited by the Washington Free Beacon in 2014. But it never saw the light of day in the mainstream news media. How many Americans know that we have a $20 trillion (and growing) debt? Or that hundreds of “sanctuary cities” across the country routinely release illegal immigrant criminals without prosecuting them or turning them over to immigration officials for deportation? Or that our FBI not only gave immunity to everybody who was complicit in Hillary Clinton’s dangerous and illegal storage of classified materials on her unsecured private server, they also helped destroy the evidence? Or that the Clinton Foundation is far from charitable, having actually skimmed millions of dollars intended for disaster relief in Haiti?

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Stories like these and countless others can be found on blog sites, investigative news sources, and sometimes Fox News. But those who don’t have the time or know where to look for real news, or at least alternative reporting, are at the mercy of NBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, and PBS – all protectors and apologists for the political left. And young adults don’t watch television news or read newspapers at all – their news comes via Facebook, Twitter, and SnapChat, filtered by left-leaning social media machines and the interests of their friends, who are products of our relentlessly leftist educational system.

My friend is worldly, intelligent, and caring. She also very busy, like millions of other Americans who want, need and deserve to know the truth about our nation, its challenges, and the powerful people who seek to run it. But the unholy alliance between the Democrat party and the corrupt liberal mainstream media has left her and most Americans defenseless and in the dark. It feeds and breeds corruption.

Those of us who have the time and the drive to ferret out the news are duty bound to share it with our friends and families. The only other way to challenge news media corruption is to elect outsiders to public office who will move in and drain the swamp.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

You take no interest, no opinion’s too dear
You make the rounds and you try to be so sincere
You guard your hopes and you pocket your dreams
You’d trade it all to avoid an unpleasant scene

In the Dark – Billy Squier

Here Come Da Judge(s)

Posted on October 8, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

here-come-da-judge One more month until Decision Day, and as of this writing the 2016 presidential election is still a toss-up.

Speaking of tossing-up, I once heard a perfect description of a hard choice: It’s being up to your neck in crap and having a bucket of puke thrown at your face. (sorry)

There’s Hillary, the queen of arrogance, who lies in the face of a dead soldier’s mother without blinking, trades back-door deals with dictators and bankers for mountains of cash, and shamelessly turns everything she touches into molten corruption.

And there’s Donald, the narcissistic and boorish bull-in-the-china-shop who not only speaks with the vocabulary of a junior high kid, he acts like one whenever somebody pushes his buttons.

At an informal town hall meeting this week, Congressman Mick Mulvaney made a surprising prediction.

“Trump will win,” Mulvaney pronounced. “And he will struggle for six months, unable to put any of his policies in place, mostly because of the 60-vote rule in the Senate.” Then, according to Mulvaney, Trump will try the Obama “pen and phone” approach, taking matters into his own hands. “And we [Mulvaney and other conservative legislators] will be on the House floor stopping him. I’ll tell him, ‘I like what you are trying to do, but you can’t do it on your own’.”

Mulvaney says their principled stand will teach Trump to work with Congress, heal the Republican party, and restore the voters’ respect for government.

If the decision hinges on which candidate is less distasteful, it’s going to be a tough choice. But there is a much more compelling factor in this election that can’t be dismissed. Our next president will establish the makeup and tenor of the supreme court and lower courts for decades to come.

If judges and justices were all honorable and operated within the constraints of the Constitution, this would not matter. They aren’t, so it does.

The separation of powers built into our Constitution should prevent one branch from dominating the others, but despite a Republican majority in both houses our legislative branch has become impotent. President Obama’s administrative branch has steam-rolled Congress, as executive orders go unchecked, and agencies execute the President’s playbook with support from activist Democrat circuit and appellate judges. 70% of the appellate courts are now home to Democrat appointees, thanks to what Ken Cuccinelli, president of the Senate Conservatives Fund calls a “knee-jerk surrender” on nominees by Senate leader Mitch McConnell.

The next president will nominate several Supreme Court justices and countless other circuit and appellate judges. Donald Trump promises to select constitutionalists for judicial openings, and already has a list of prospects for the Supreme Court. Hillary Clinton will install radical liberals if she is elected, which, combined with the fecklessness of Congress, will alter the balance of power, perhaps permanently.

When a liberal administration and courts have unfettered rule over the nation, our basic freedoms are at risk. Religious freedom, property rights, protections from overreaching regulation, and free speech are under assault even now.

If you vote for Hillary, stand back. Cause here come da judge(s).

Tom Balek, Rockin’ On the Right Side

I’d rather be lost
In the jungle of Brazil
Than to face the judge this morning
The way he feels
Here come da judge!

Here Come Da Judge – Shorty Long

There were a bunch of “Here Comes the Judge” songs. Here’s my favorite, from 1968.

The United States of Africa

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard 1

megacities_poverty_main A few weeks ago I ran into Samuel, a dual citizen of Nigeria and the United States. A well-educated businessman, his wife is a political consultant whose work takes her to every corner of Africa. Samuel made his living buying cars in Europe and the USA, and selling them in Nigeria to corporate clients who work for Shell, Coca-Cola, and other well-heeled clients. But he says it’s getting almost impossible to do business in Nigeria.

I try to keep up on international news, including Africa, and eagerly asked Samuel what’s happening in his home country. He confirmed and amplified what I already knew: that Nigeria would be one of the wealthiest nations on Earth if it were not for the relentless government corruption. Muhammadu Buhari was elected president last year, replacing the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan. Samuel told me Jonathan had risen to the presidency promising to put an end to the rampant cronyism and corruption that has infected the Nigerian government since its independence. But under Jonathan the corruption only got worse. And his replacement, Buhari, is no better, having installed his own cronies and schemes. Samuel described how the government officials and their friends are putting him, and most Nigerian entrepreneurs, out of business. He now drives Uber full time to put food on the table, and hasn’t been home for six months.

I sympathized with Samuel. “That’s where my country is headed, too. I would never have dreamed the United States government could become so corrupt.”

Hollywood could not come up with a plot so thin and unbelievable, and yet it unfolds before our eyes.

The U.S. Secretary of State sells influence to foreign leaders – greasing the skids for defense contracts, granting uranium mining rights on US soil to Russia, steering favorable rulings from international agencies – in exchange for cash contributions to her “foundation”, which is nothing more than a multi-billion dollar slush fund. The foundation pays no taxes and makes few charitable contributions; even worse, it siphons off legitimate disaster funds for the benefit of the Secretary’s family, friends, and cronies. American corporate cronies get in on the act, expecting “pay for play” rewards from the Secretary, who is presumed to become president.

The Secretary sets up a secret and illegal communication system to hide her corrupt dealings from public view, and when it is discovered, she has all of the records professionally “bleached” from her servers, laughing at congressional subpoenas demanding their release.

An FBI investigation ensues, but the director of the FBI gives immunity to everybody who could have been indicted for illegal handling of classified government communications and tampering with evidence. He does not even listen to the damning facts revealed in Congressional hearings or an FBI interview with the Secretary under oath, and hastily proclaims that the Attorney General should not prosecute. Almost simultaneously, the Attorney General has a clandestine meeting with the Secretary’s husband and former president, the subject of which is clearly either threat or payoff. The inquiry is dropped. And the stench of corruption hangs thick all over the nation’s capital.

The most creative fiction writer on planet Earth could not come up with less plausible story. Or at least this could only happen in a third-world hell-hole in Africa, right? Certainly not in the United States of America, the world’s champion of fairness, truth and democracy.

But it is happening, here and now. And our media, plus most of the American public and all of our representatives and senators (except for a few brave Freedom Caucus members) are perfectly happy to look the other way. No indictments. No impeachments. Not even a breath of criticism. The most corrupt political leader in the history of our nation may very well soon be our president.

This is unprecedented. It is clear that our government is now irretrievably corrupt. Citizens can no longer have any confidence in the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Congress, the Administration, or any federal agency. Congress could impeach the director of the FBI, and the Attorney General. But they won’t. Laws don’t apply to the politically connected. There is nobody left to stop the corruption except the citizens.

I don’t want our government to collapse, and I don’t want my grandchildren to live (or die) through a civil war. Sound extreme? Look back through history. Whenever governments become unbearably corrupt and untouchable, change ultimately comes via brute force. And it’s never pretty. Ask any African.

Right now American citizens have only one course of action: to elect a president who is not part of the corrupt political machine, and hope for the best. The corrupt legislative branch and the corrupt judicial branch will take years to turn over, but the corrupt administrative branch can be overthrown in one day. Failing that, we might as well be the United States of Africa.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Let’s fight corruption. Let’s fight corruption.
Let’s fight corruption as much as we can.
Let’s fight corruption. Let’s fight corruption.
Let’s fight corruption, together we stand.

The Child Africa Corruption Song

Career and Technology Education – An Alternative to College

Posted on September 23, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

The nexus between education and employment has never been more complex.

Some political leaders and candidates say a college education is so vital in today’s job market that taxpayers should provide it as a free entitlement. Most high schools view anything short of college admission as a failure. But many college graduates, despite racking up huge student loan debt, have such a hard time finding jobs that they end up tending bar or waiting tables. Meanwhile employers contend that they can’t find employees with adequate skills for entry level or more advanced positions. And foreign students dominate advanced-study courses at our universities, casting doubt on the rigor and subject matter of our traditional high school classes.

Clearly something is out of sync in the school-to-career formula.

School choice is widely embraced as the primary vehicle for improved educational outcomes. There is no longer any question that schools who compete for students and have the freedom to try innovative methods deliver better results than traditional schools. Still, many “choice” schools offer the same college-prep curriculum, but in a different building or perhaps using alternative methods.

Recognizing the disconnect between education and jobs, some states and school districts are now focusing more on Career and Technology Education (CTE).

While my home state of South Carolina does not specifically address school choice on a state-wide basis, the department of education’s Career and Technology Education division offers significant support to designated “choice” districts. Many of these districts now offer alternative education options to their resident families, including CTE centers. Greenville County Public Schools, for example, enrolls 15% of its students in non-traditional “choice” schools.

The South Carolina Dept. of Education provides standards-based curricular and instructor support for both traditional and specialized schools. The department hosts training workshops and seminars, administers standards, and tracks performance through a highly organized program funded by a combination of federal grants and state education money.

Suggested and supported course offerings are organized into “career clusters”, and the list is impressive:

Agriculture
Architecture and Construction
Arts, AV Technology and Communications
Business Management and Administration
Education and Training Careers
Finance
Health Sciences
Hospitality and Tourism
Human Services
Information Technology
Law, Public Safety, Corrections and Security
Manufacturing
Marketing
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
Transportation, Distribution and Logistics

The Floyd D. Johnson Technology Center in York, SC shares a campus with a traditional high school, and provides career and technology education for students in the county who apply and are accepted. Ron Roveri, Director of Career and Technology Education for the state, headed the Tech Center for fourteen years prior to accepting the top state CTE post.

I asked Roveri if South Carolina held the same strong bias toward college prep that I find in other states and districts. “Not at all,” he replied. Our program is designed to work seamlessly for students who are preparing to enter college, the work force, or the military after high school.”

As college graduates find it increasingly difficult to land good jobs, and employers struggle to find good employees, the pressure is on our school systems to make students career-ready – even those who don’t attend or graduate from college. Career and Technology Education choice schools are a solution whose time has come.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Every morning about this time
She get me out of my bed
A-crying get a job.
After breakfast, every day,
She throws the want ads right my way
And never fails to say,
Get a job!

Get A Job – the Silhouettes

No More Immigration Until We Fix Anacostia

Posted on September 21, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

photo by Chris Roberts, American Renaissance

It was a short drive from my hotel in Washington, DC’s toney National Harbor district to the Capitol. But we were stuck in heavy traffic on I-295 into downtown. My Uber driver slid to the outside lane and hit the exit. “I have a quicker way to get downtown,” he said. That was fine with me, although I really wasn’t in a hurry.

Within minutes we were smack in the middle of the Anacostia ghetto. We might as well have taken the exit to Mars.

I live in South Carolina, in a comfy suburb across the lake from Charlotte (NC). My town seems to me like normal America. My trips to the city can sometimes take me through areas that are not exactly high-rent districts. But they don’t look or feel anything like Anacostia. Over the years I’ve been through the barrio on Figueroa in LA, I have cruised around South Chicago, I’ve seen some of the underbelly of Detroit. I thought I had seen some of the ugliest armpits our nation has to offer. But Anacostia was an eye-opener.

We drove through mile after mile of liquor stores, check-cashers, and raggedy store-fronts, each decorated with young black men (and a few women) leaning against them. It was 10:00 a.m., and clearly none of the Anacostia folks had anywhere to go or anything to do. Some chugged beers, a few shared doobies openly on the street, and here and there were clusters of guys who appeared to be negotiating their next big deal. It was so totally foreign, I gaped out the passenger window in dropped-jaw amazement. I must have looked like a zoo animal to them. A boarded up dilapidated cafe, an elementary school unfit for the rats that live there, a rehab clinic doing brisk business. A muscular young guy jogging and shadow-boxing, Rocky-style. A wheelchair-bound young woman rolling up to a grubby corner drug store.

I’m not one who notices race first, but the segregation was jarring – there was not a single face that was not African-American.

My Vietnamese immigrant driver pretended to be oblivious to the bizarre scene, but his eyes saw what mine did. “It nicer across freeway,” he repeated several times in broken English.

Block after block, my state of mind shifted from shock to amazement to concern. By the time we emerged from Anacostia and re-entered the “normal” world, I was despondent. How the hell did this happen? Why hasn’t anybody done anything about this? We can’t just leave these hopeless people and this God-forsaken mess like it is.

There is no excuse for this kind of scene in the United States of America. Whoever gets elected in November had better take a good hard look at what’s going on in Anacostia, and Detroit, and South Chicago, and LA.

I could bore you with all of the tried-and-failed stock solutions to poverty and blight. But you’ve heard plenty of empty promises over the years, from the left and the right. More welfare is not the answer – it hasn’t worked and it never will. Telling people to get to work isn’t it either – there are no jobs for the totally unskilled and unschooled people of the Anacostia ghetto. This won’t get better until the American people decide it is unacceptable, move in, and get after it.

My trip through the ghetto brought home one message loud and clear. We had better not waste another dollar or another ounce of labor or another drop of compassion on opportunistic foreign immigrants until we bring Anacostia back to normal America.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

It’s survival in the city
When you live from day to day
City streets don’t have much pity
When you’re down, that’s where you’ll stay

In the City – Joe Walsh

Bull Riders Call Charlotte Arena’s Political Correctness ‘BS’

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

bull-rider The bull riders were ready to pack up their saddles and head off toward the sunset. Even the world’s toughest athletes can only take so much bull***t.

For some reason Charlotte, NC is seeking the title of “Most Politically Correct City in the USA,” and just can’t seem to stop poking itself in the eye. This summer Charlotte found its first brush with worldwide fame – not for any positive accomplishment, but for passing a city law that allows men to use women’s rest rooms, locker rooms, or any other private facilities. And vice versa, although I don’t understand why women would prefer the nastiness of some of the men’s rooms I have encountered. Anyway, the city law was so stupid that the governor had to step in and overrule it with a state law before things got really crazy, like men choosing to compete in women’s sports, and lechers hanging out in the girls’ locker room at the YMCA. As a result, the city and state are being blacklisted by politically correct entertainers, athletic event organizers, etc. But I digress.

Last weekend the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) came to town for the Charlotte Invitational. If you have ever watched a PBR event, you know that these are the roughest, toughest hombres in the world of sports. Their idea of Friday night fun is climbing on top of a 2,000 pound animal named Perfect Poison that was specifically bred to be mean as a rattlesnake and tough as a . . . well, a bull – and try to stay on for 8 seconds. And then not get stomped to death.

These are not the kind of guys who are politically correct. In fact it would be fair to say they are pretty strong-willed, especially when it comes to love of God and country.

So when the manager of the Spectrum Center told PBR head honcho Sean Gleason that he could not have the U.S. Customs and Border Agents present the flag before his event because they carry guns, Gleason threatened to shut down the show.

Gleason wrote on his Facebook page:

“As Federal Agents working in an official capacity, they are not allowed to ‘surrender’ their firearms to anyone, especially a security guard working at an arena in Charlotte, NC!! That included the color guard who were presenting the American flag to our fans for the anthem. What should have been a two-minute conversation with the GM of the building turned into a 1½ hour runaround involving lawyers and the most insane arguments and reasoning I have ever heard.”

One minute before the event was to begin, the arena manager relented, allowing the Border Agents to enter the arena, albeit with a police escort.

At least half (I think a lot more) of Americans see this kind of lunacy (allowing men in womens’ rest rooms, and not allowing professional law enforcement officers to enter a building with their weapons) and wonder if the other half is drunk, crazy, evil, or all the above. Thank God there are still some no-nonsense guys like the PBR cowboys who are willing to take a stand against this politically-correct BS.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Well the one hand hold is all you got
It’s you and the bull against the clock and a cross crowd
And once upon a spinnin’ ton
Nothin’ else you’ve ever done can pull this way

Bull Rider – Johnny Cash

Hillary and the Liberal “Basket Wars”

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard 1

photo by Chris Ayers

For the past several weeks, every time I drive down Tyvola Road in Charlotte I suffer a temporary case of road rage. I’m not angry at other drivers. What makes me flipping furious is the big church reader board sign that says, “STOP KILLING, DISRESPECTING BLACK PEOPLE”.

My visceral reaction is always the same: “Are you talking to ME?”

I assure you, I have never killed black people. And I have never disrespected black people. At least not any more than I have disrespected white people or yellow people or red people who don’t deserve my respect.

So why do I have a sign in my face, demanding that I stop killing black people? How does anybody who doesn’t know me assume I am a racist? Or a murderer? Or both? And what about the other tens of thousands of people who see that sign every day? How many of them kill black people?

I am so sick of being called a racist that sometimes I think I should become one just so I wouldn’t be so damn mad about being falsely accused of it all the time. That sign doesn’t apply to the 99.9999% of the people driving by who don’t kill black people. So what’s the point of sticking it our faces? You don’t say, “Thank you for not killing black people.” You just accuse us all of doing it.

And now, just to top it off, the Democrat candidate for president of my country calls me a “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic DEPLORABLE.”

Well here’s the thing. I know a lot more about you, Hillary, than you know about me. You must feel threatened, because every time a liberal feels threatened he or she falls back on false accusations, name-calling and race-baiting. Your Chicken Little “everybody is racist” game has Martin Luther King turning over in his grave. Thank God the American people, and especially our African-American brothers and sisters, are finally catching on to your evil, self-serving, manipulative treachery.

And let’s be clear. This is not a black-on-white attack. My black friends accept me as an American brother just as I do them. In fact, almost every black guy I meet is as politically conservative as I am. No, this is the work of political hack liberals, like Dr. Chris Ayers, pastor of Wedgewood Church, who only see people in categories – white, black, gay, straight, rich, poor, and then pits them against each other. Hillary calls these categories “baskets”. And she lumps everyone who doesn’t vote for her into a big basket called “Deplorables” and labels us with every vile characterization she can think of.

Despite the accusations, all of us who drive on Tyvola Road, and all of us who won’t vote for Hillary, are saddened by any untimely deaths of black people. And white people. And gay people and innocent Muslim people, and soldier people and truck driving people and Russian people and all people. We are normal, compassionate human beings. When are the liberals going to knock off the “basket wars” and let us be a big, happy basket of Americans?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

She’ll hang the baskets on the walls
Don’t you know I’ve seen it all before
She’ll hang the baskets on the walls
But I’ve seen it all before, heard the slamming of the door
Come summer, come fall
Come winter, there’ll be baskets on the floor

She’ll Hang the Baskets – Cake

This tune is a little bit obscure, but a cool song by one of my favorite newer bands. Sorry, no live recording.