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.

More Ugly Obama/Clinton Crony Corruption

Posted on September 7, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Hillary Clinton and billionaire Warren Buffett, who invested $30 billion in taxpayer-subsidized solar and wind energy – photo by NPR

Robert Murray may be the most frustrated and abused CEO in the USA.

The owner of Murray Energy is the last man standing in the fight to save the coal industry from the Obama / Clinton “war on coal”, and his emotional appeals on the news networks reveal that he may be down for the count.

Murray grew up poor, picking up a shovel at age 16 to keep his family afloat after his father was paralysed in a mine accident. He persevered through good times and bad to become one of the biggest players in the coal business, and now, at age 75, Murray sees all his hard work and investment going up in smoke, along with the livelihoods of his employees.

When President Obama declared in 2008 that he would destroy the coal industry, he wasn’t kidding. “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can,” he said. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

Over 400 coal mines have shut down since then, putting 83,000 miners on the street. As coal companies headed for the exits, Murray bought many of them, unable to accept that the nation would allow such a valuable and strategically critical industry to just die at the whim of an imperious and misguided president.

Eight years later, Obama’s pre-ordained successor, Hillary Clinton, has doubled down, promising to “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

Obama’s and Clinton’s pretense for eliminating the source of one-third of America’s electricity is their desire to save the planet and its inhabitants from “carbon pollution”. But Murray isn’t buying it, as he told Fox Business:

“Windmills and solar panels generate 26 cent per kilowatt hour electricity – coal is only 4 cents a kilowatt hour. The reason why she wants to see coal eliminated is because she’s getting millions of dollars of kickback to the Clinton Foundation and to her campaign from people who she says needs government help. You know who she’s talking about? She’s talking about Warren Buffett, the Pritzkers, Elon Musk, Tom Steyer—all billionaires that are making billions of dollars off of windmills and solar panels that are made in China.”

“She’s getting hundreds of millions of dollars from some of the largest banks in the country, from some of the largest electric utilities, and from these billionaires that I just mentioned. They need the subsidies – wind and solar are not competitive with coal or other fossil fuels. So they are making billions of dollars, these billionaires, and they are kicking back millions to the Clinton Foundation and to Hillary Clinton – it’s a story we have been hearing over and over. The lowest 25 million families on the poverty scale in the country now spend 22 cents of every dollar they earn for energy. We need to be worrying about the energy poverty in this country, not making more billionaires as Hillary Clinton attempts to eliminate the reliable low-cost electricity and substitute these ‘crony capitalists’. It’s fraud – it’s absolute fraud!”

Today President Obama announced his “Clean Power Plan”, a new set of standards to limit “carbon pollution” from power plants. The plan makes the outwardly pure-hearted promise to “decrease the pollutants that contribute to the soot and smog and can lead to more asthma attacks in kids by more than 70 percent.” We all love kids, and don’t want them breathing soot and smog, right? But the plan’s main thrust is to control carbon dioxide emissions, which have absolutely nothing to do with “soot and smog”. Carbon dioxide is clear and odorless, it is necessary for plant life, and it has no impact on global temperatures or pollution of any kind.

Democrats sob about “the children” and flaunt blown-up photos of old Chinese factories belching smoke, pretending they are modern American electrical power generation plants and hoping the low-information public will believe the carbon dioxide hoax pumped through their politically-motivated news media. Meanwhile, they destroy our clean and efficient energy infrastructure for no purpose other than to generate profit for their crony friends and receive kickbacks in return.

I never dreamed my government could become so corrupt, or that so many of our citizens would be unwilling or unable to put up a fight.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Hanging on every word, believing the things I heard
Being a fool
You’ve taken my life, so take my soul
That’s what you said and I believed it all
Liar! Liar!

Liar – Three Dog Night

What Is ‘School Choice’ for Special-Needs Students?

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

All parents want the best possible educations for their children. “School choice” has been embraced by our country as a way to improve educational outcomes. Parents can now consider: What schools are available? What will be taught? Who pays for it?

These questions are daunting enough for the parents of a “normal” kid. But not all kids are “normal.”

Some are blind or deaf. Some have learning disabilities, mild or severe. Some are autistic. Some have psychiatric disorders. Some struggle to just stay alive. If you think a parent’s challenge to get the best education for a “normal” kid is tough, just imagine getting a good education for a special-needs student.

With a special-needs student, the same questions apply. What schools are available? What will be taught? Who will pay for it? But because special-needs students make up such a small proportion of the population, results may vary.

Let’s not dance around the main issue: educating special-needs kids is expensive. School districts who are accustomed to paying $12,000 per student/year tend to freak out when faced with a $70,000 bill for an itinerant special ed teacher who serves only one student. Plus these students might affect the school’s standardized testing performance.

It raises the age-old question: Should special-needs students be mainstreamed in public schools with their “normal” peers, or should they be sent to schools with specialized programs and teachers who are better equipped to handle them and their disabilities?

In 1974 Congress passed the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which guarantees children with disabilities a public education appropriate to their needs, at no cost to their families, with these provisions:

Children with disabilities must be educated with students who do not have disabilities and should attend the school that is closest to home.
Children with disabilities must be provided with support services that assist them in benefiting educationally from their instructional program.
An assessment must be completed to determine the child’s needs. This may be done only with the parent’s informed written consent.

Parents of special-needs students will pretty much unanimously attest that getting educational services at any acceptable level involves a tremendous battle – my wife and I raised a totally blind son through public schools and can offer personal testimony. “School Choices” can seem binary to special-needs families. Will my kid get a real education, or not? And where: local public schools, or special school?

Most states still operate resident deaf / blind schools. And all public school districts are required to provide special-education services. Now that most states offer public school choices – traditional schools, charter schools, alternative schools, innovation schools, trade- or discipline-specific schools – the situation is all the more confusing for special-needs families.

An often-heard concern about privately-operated charter and innovation schools is that they will not accept or provide appropriate services for special-needs students, despite federal requirements. The jury is out, but early studies suggest that parents of special-needs students usually choose traditional public schools over charter schools for their students.

The new alternative school models usually run on lighter budgets, and are sometimes rigidly driven by profit. Will this relegate special-needs students to the traditional public schools, limiting their access to other schools of choice? On a recent visit to Denver for the Franklin Center’s #AmplifyChoice conference, I was pleased to see that one of the major independent school networks has schools that specialize in services for students with certain disabilities.

Most likely the key element to the successful education of special-needs students will not change in the new “school choice” environment. Parents who aggressively advocate for their kids will receive good services, and those who don’t, won’t. Let’s hope that states and districts keep the interests of their special-needs students at heart as school choices evolve.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

When some loud braggart tries to put me down,
And says his school is great
I tell him right away
“Now what’s the matter buddy
Ain’t you heard of my school?
It’s number one in the state!”

Be True To Your School – the Beach Boys

Denver Post Freezes Out African-American Candidates. Raaaaacists!

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard 1

Racist! Raaaaaacist!

It’s the oldest play in the Democrat handbook. Any time they feel threatened by an opponent, they fall back on the old reliable “you are a racist” routine. They never have evidence; every time they level the charge it is a flat-out lie. They can’t prove racism, but they know they don’t even have to try. Just the accusation is enough to turn low-information dumb-bots against their Republican opponents.

Isn’t it odd, then, that one of the left’s very own “totally-in-the-tank” newspapers, the Denver Post, has no shame for their public naked discrimination against African-American candidates for office in Colorado?

Derrick Wilburn is vice chair of the Colorado Republican Party, and an African-American. He won his post in March of 2015, and after a year and a half of being “the invisible man” to the Denver Post, he finally popped a vessel.

In an op-ed in the Colorado Springs Gazette, Wilburn wrote:

The Denver Post is the largest newspaper in our state. I was elected to my current position as state GOP vice chairman in March 2015. A black American elected in a landslide by a 98 percent white constituency. Not once in the year and a half I’ve held this office has the Post contacted me for a story, sought me for a quote, placed my picture in their pages or so much as bothered to ask a question. I’m the sitting party vice chair, and as far as the Post is concerned, I don’t exist.

And Wilburn is not the only freeze-out victim.

Darryl Glenn is as solid a candidate for US Senate as you will find anywhere. 21 years of military service. Budget and management guru. Attorney. PTA president. Church leader. Champion weight-lifter. Proud parent. African-American. So how is it the Denver Post completely ignores his stellar candidacy, save for occasionally trashing his integrity because he doesn’t believe in murdering babies?

Colorado should also be extremely proud of Casper Stockham, candidate for US House District 1. 14 years of military service. Business management expert. Author, speaker and radio host. Devout Christian. Common sensible and down-to-earth. African American. Nothing from the Denver Post about Stockham except crickets chirping.

Whenever somebody on the right side of the political fence criticizes Barack Obama’s abject policy failures, they are vilified as racists. Obama’s followers believe their man is so perfect that only a racist could utter a discouraging word. But the same standard doesn’t apply to Colorado’s own Wilburn, Glenn, or Stockham. Because they are conservatives, and the left has no tolerance for African-Americans who stray off the Democrat plantation.

And the Post apparently has no tolerance for readers who object to their duplicity, either. When blogger Pete Boddie from Littleton questioned Denver Post lead writer Joey Bunch about his paper’s treatment of African-American candidates, he got this terse reply: “drop dead”. Doesn’t look like you are ready for that Pulitzer this year, Joey.

Meanwhile the Post’s circulation tumbles like an April avalanche in Aspen, and all the hard-left editors at the few papers still clinging to life around our once-great nation slap each other on the back, never wondering why the public doesn’t trust them any more.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

When the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band
From the coastline to the city, all the little pretties raise their hands
I’m gonna sit back right easy and laugh
When Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half
With the Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out

Tenth Avenue Freeze Out – Bruce Springsteen

Home Schooling Is School Choice

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard 1

NC homeschool growth chart When the topic of “school choice” comes up, most people think of charter schools, alternative schools, or private schools. Yet a rapidly growing number of families are making the choice to educate their children at home. According to latest estimates, over 4% of students nationwide are homeschooled, and the trend is accelerating.

Colorado state senator Kevin Lundberg recently explained to the Franklin Center’s #AmplifyChoice Conference attendees why homeschooling is so attractive to parents. “Homeschoolers typically track two grade levels above their peers, their socialization skills are far advanced over students from traditional schools, and they are highly sought by universities and employers because of their great variety of skills and independence of thought,” he said.

North Carolina is one of the states that has seen attendance at traditional public schools give ground to private, public non-traditional, and homeschool alternatives in recent years. In fact, the number of homeschooled students spiked 10% just last year, according to the North Carolinians for Home Education (NCHE).

My daughter is one of many homeschooling parents in North Carolina, having left a successful professional career to teach her twins (boy and girl), now six years old. Her main concern about traditional schools is the waste of precious time. “Public school kids spend so much time at their desks in class, on testing, waiting in line, and doing homework,” she said. “I think children need more time to explore their individual interests and to develop social and personal skills. I worried that my twins wouldn’t have the time for sports, advanced science activities, travel, field trips – the things that I had time to do when I was a kid.”

And she has not been disappointed. She learned that there is a vast network of resources for homeschoolers, and social media makes finding and organizing educational, athletic and social activities easy. Her children attend foreign language lessons, nature trips, music events and instruction, competitive sports programs, and many other activities on a regular basis, in addition to their structured class-time at home.

The results are promising: one of the six-year old twins reads at grade 4-5 level and the other is advanced at math and pre-engineering skills. That illustrates my daughter’s biggest surprise about homeschooling, and perhaps the most significant advantage over traditional schools. “I thought that teaching two children of the same age would be easy, ” she said. “But I found out they learn in entirely different ways. In the homeschool setting I can give them a lot of individual attention and structure their work to suit their learning styles individually. I don’t know how a teacher of twenty or thirty students could do that.”

Parents who are considering homeschooling are often asked whether they are concerned about their children missing the traditional schools’ social environment. For many, that’s the point – they prefer a setting that reflects their own values rather than the pop-culture, secularism and political correctness they perceive to be prevalent at public schools. And homeschool parents are pleased to find that their children actually get along well with children of all ages, and adults, too. “It’s not unusual for young teenagers to engage constructively with elementary-aged kids,” my daughter explained. “There isn’t the competition and bullying that you find in a group of traditional-school kids who spend most of their time with people their own age.”

Some families wonder whether they have the skill set to successfully teach their children at home, but that isn’t usually a problem. Children learn very efficiently on their own when provided good materials, environment, and opportunity. And supplemental resources abound, such as online classes and materials, cooperative programs with schools and universities, sessions with private businesses aimed at homeschoolers, and classes shared and organized with other homeschoolers. For the most part, success relies on the parents’ motivation.

Home Schooling Is School Choice

Homeschooling is not an option for many families whose parents must both work, or who just prefer to not be saddled with the responsibility. But those parents who are able and willing to take the plunge are finding homeschooling to be an outstanding choice for their children.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Teach your children well
Their father’s hell
Will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick’s
The one you’ll know by

Teach Your Children Well – Crosby, Still and Nash

Harmony. Harmony. Harmony!

It’s Time for You Boys in the ‘Hood to Man Up

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Chicago gang violence

It’s time for you boys in the ‘hood to man up. You need to grow a pair and join the community of real men all over the rest of the world. Real men go to work every day, sometimes doing tough jobs they really don’t want to do, to make a living and take care of their families. Real men don’t threaten or harm people – they roll up their sleeves and help when and where it is needed. Real men don’t abuse women and abandon fatherless babies all over town. Real men come in all races, sizes and places.

I don’t care what happened to your great-great-great-grandfather. If somebody treats you wrong, you have every right to deal with it on the spot, without violence, and you should. I’ll be right there with you. But you have no right to whine about something that happened a hundred years before you were born. You have no right to come across our border to sell drugs. And you sure as hell have no right to violence or lawlessness against people who have done nothing to deserve it.

You think you’re bad? Yeah, you might carry a gun. A lot of real men do, too. But our families and neighbors are safer because we do. Are yours?

You think you’re tough? Tough is hand-carrying a truckload of sheetrock to the third floor of a house under construction in the 95 degree heat. Tough is pulling a breeched calf at 3 in the morning in the icy rain. Tough is foot-patrolling a desert village, not knowing where or when the snipers or IEDs will hit.

You probably can’t be embarrassed into becoming a real man. But just making it real – you don’t know what you are missing. Your life could be so much better.

You might think smoking dope or swigging “Lean” makes you feel good. That’s nothing. Your heart will bust out of your chest when you rock your baby girl to sleep in your arms in the middle of the night. You’ve never felt joy like seeing your boy hit his first little league home run. And trust me, the women down at the club don’t begin to compare to the one you could have if you were a real man – one who can raise your kids, cook your dinner, go to work, and help you build a barbecue deck on your very own home.

You don’t need a fancy education to get a good job and make serious money. In fact, you probably have a better chance of making good money sooner without a degree, if you are willing to get up every day and go do the work that is in demand because others are too proud or too puny to try. If you have to do physical labor for a while, so what? You are young and strong, the pay is good, and you can learn while you work so you can move up with your employer or even start your own business some day. There are millions of good-paying jobs out there just waiting for real men who are dependable and ambitious. It doesn’t take long to pull together some serious money if you are honest, smart, and you get after it. And believe it or not, the satisfaction of a job well done really feels good.

I know none of the boys in the ‘hood are reading this. But maybe you know one, or know somebody who knows one, or have some way to help get this message out. Somehow the senseless violence and wasted potential in the ‘hood has to be turned around. And another government program won’t make a bit of difference. The boys in the hood have to want to change, and if they only knew what they were missing in life, they would.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Comin’ up in da hood where the streets are cold
Either you gon’ stretch or either you gon’ fold
Either you gon’ ride or get rolled on
Which one is it or they pay you a visit?

Hood – Jibbs

Education in Denver Is Getting Better – Thanks to School Choice

Posted on August 19, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Strive Prep Schools

Last week I made a trip to Denver for the Franklin Center’s #AmplifyChoice school choice conference. It was a deep-dive into the promise and progress of school choice, and a chance to see Colorado’s pioneering effort to ratchet up its educational performance and outcomes. Here are some surprises:

Denver is the fastest growing school district in the United States.
Ten years ago only 39% of students in Denver’s public schools graduated from high school on time. That has improved to about 65%.
Denver’s demographics are rapidly changing; 52% of Denver Public Schools students are Hispanic and 70% are low income. 32% come to the district as non-English speakers.

In fact, Denver’s recent educational history is full of surprises. The Denver public school district was in real trouble in the early 2000s – students fled to the suburbs and to private schools, and academic performance was falling off a cliff, leaving low-income and minority students behind. And the rapid influx of immigrant students, many without English skills, left teachers and administrators perplexed and unable to cope. It was evident to everyone – educators, public officials, and citizens – that something had to change.

Since then Denver’s educational policy has been all about change. After initial resistance from school insiders, the educational institutions embraced the concept of school choice as a vehicle for change and improvement, leading to the development of charter and “innovation” schools. Some remained under the auspices of the DPS district, while others were standalone institutions or grouped into publicly-funded private districts. All receive public funding and access is gained through a universal enrollment system operated by a selection algorithm and lottery process. A number of performance measurement and improvement processes have been implemented by local and state authorities, including a complex data model called the “School Performance Framework”.

We visited the Green Valley Ranch middle school, a unit of the Strive Preparatory Schools charter group, and the occupant of one “pod” in a cluster of five schools built with public education bonds. The curriculum is similar to the public schools, but there are different teaching methods and extra enhancements available to students. Like all Denver schools, this is a college prep school, focused entirely on making students ready for college, and the Strive organization boasts a 92% acceptance rate for their graduates.

The Strive group is made up of 97% “of color”, 87% “low income”, 12% “special needs”, and 40% English-learners. I found this curious, since the school is across the street from a large suburban middle-class neighborhood, where one would presumably find at least some white children, and certainly none who are low-income. The principal explained that there are many factors that determine which of five school choices a given student will win a chance to attend. The algorithm is weighted toward minorities and low-income families. I got the impression that if a family across the street makes the school “choice” to attend Green Valley, the likelihood of winning that lottery is slim. It raises the question of school segregation all over again, as critics claim that Denver schools are more segregated now than they were in the 70s.

Like most Denver charter schools, Strive’s teachers are non-union, and they tend to be younger than the public school district instructors. While starting pay, according to Chryise Harris, Strive’s communications director, is within a few thousand dollars of that at DPS, the gap reaches $15,000 per teacher overall, according to Dan Schaller of the Colorado League of Charter Schools. Strive CEO Chris Gibbons said, “We compete very well for the best teachers available.” He also expressed a preference for younger teachers because he feels they are better suited to the newer and preferred methods employed by Strive.

Denver’s charter schools have taken on a daunting challenge and are making progress toward meeting the educational needs of their changing community. While some question the metrics used in the performance comparisons, the charter schools seem to consistently outperform their public school peers academically, at a lower cost per student. And there appears to be real progress in narrowing the gap between socioeconomic classes.

It’s good to see Denver leading the way in school choice and change. In Denver, education is getting better.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I used to get mad at my school
The teachers that taught me weren’t cool
You’re holding me down, turning me round
Filling me up with your rules
I admit it’s getting better,
A little better all the time!

It’s Getting Better – Paul McCartney

RedState Gathering – Nothing Resolved, We All Just Disagree

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard 3

I attended the RedState Gathering in Denver this weekend, not knowing what to expect, and even prepared for a brawl. I joked with friends that if I saw talk radio flame-thrower Steve Deace walking by, I would trip him.

The RedState Gathering is an annual political event hosted by RedState, the right-wing media group led in recent years by Erick Erickson. I have followed Erickson for years and held him in high esteem as a deep thinker and a solid defender of conservative values – small government, free markets, and personal responsibility. But then Trump happened, and Erickson and I parted ways.

Somehow, out of 17 GOP candidates for president, Trump won. My first favorite, Carly Fiorina, held on as long as she could, but was never really a contender. My second favorite, Ted Cruz, put up a good fight that got ugly at the end. Trump emerged, without the support of the majority of voters, as the only alternative to Hillary.

The right side of the electorate immediately fractured into four groups, deftly described by Guy Benson in the final panel discussion at the Gathering, and only slightly modified below by me.

There are those who were on the Trump train from the start, and will gleefully vote for him in the general election. They are furious that no one in government has listened to them for a long time, and they want to blow up the Washington DC cartel and start over. They have no reservations about Trump’s character or ability.
Then there is the group that is not crazy about Trump, but see the election as binary, and are terrified of the inevitable and irreversible harm a Hillary presidency will bring: activist courts shredding the Constitution for decades to come, accelerated immigration that will guarantee liberal domination into perpetuity, unstoppable growth and overreach of government, ridiculous imposition of political correctness, destruction of jobs and the economy, loss of national security, racial and gender disharmony, and Clinton Corruption in every corner. This group feels compelled to vote for Trump. I am in this camp, as are most conservative media pundits: Limbaugh, Ingraham, Hannity, Hewitt, Gallagher, and others. Hugh Hewitt defended our case admirably to the Gathering.
The third group which includes Erickson and RedState are so disturbed by Trump’s personality, and the perception that he is not a pure conservative, that they are actively campaigning against him. They refuse to vote for or support Trump on principle; they just can’t live with a president who is persistently politically incorrect. They suspect his motives, even though he has never been in government and has no policy record. They don’t like Hillary either, but are willing to let her slip into the Oval Office in the hopes that they will be able to re-group and pick up the pieces in four years.Iowa radio talk show host Steve Deace is the most vitriolic Trump critic – you can imagine the blood spurting from his eyes as he rails against Trump on the radio every day. Other less strident members of this group are radio host Michael Medved and Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard. Katie Pavlich, TV spokeswoman for Townhall.com, rationalized her opposition to Trump to the Gathering this morning, saying Trump will not beat Hillary anyway, so she is doing no harm. Erickson, a newly ordained preacher, views the election in biblical terms. He said, “The weather after November is going to be really bad. Expect to see houses falling from the sky.” But Erickson and his followers won’t vote for Trump, or stop criticizing him, under any circumstances. Glenn Beck passionately pleaded with the audience to not vote for Trump, promising an apocalypse if he is elected. He made the obligatory criticisms of Hillary, but he wasn’t specific about what actions Trump might take that will cause the mountains to crumble and the stars to fall from the sky.
The fourth group is made up of people who claim to be conservatives and have decided they will vote for Hillary. I agree with Erickson’s observation that these people are mentally ill.

As I said, I didn’t know what to expect, but I still brought home some surprises from the Gathering. I thought the attendees would be predominantly anti-Trump; they weren’t – most people there will be voting for Trump. I thought the stridently “NeverTrump” organizers would be unwilling to accept or listen to opposing views; they weren’t – they were patient and understanding of those whose views don’t line up with their own. And I thought Senator Ben Sasse, who Kristol and Erickson floated as a third-party opponent to Trump, might be a self-serving demagogue; he certainly isn’t. In fact, his homespun Nebraska common sense, along with his extraordinary speaking skill, makes him a serious contender for leader of the conservative renaissance, if the “right side” survives.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

So let’s leave it alone ’cause we can’t see eye to eye
There ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy
There’s only you and me and we just disagree

We Just Disagree – Dave Mason

Time For A Change – Make Govt. Employees Accountable

Posted on August 9, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard 4

photo courtesy WesternJournalism.com

If you got caught spending most of your time at work watching porn on your computer, do you think you might get fired? If you owed money to your employer and refused to pay it, would you expect to keep your job?

If you are a federal employee, no worries. Less than one-half of one percent get fired. Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC) said, “It’s so laborious for managers to address poor performers that sometimes it’s easier for them to ignore the bad employee or give suspension with pay and hope that it corrects itself.”

With the average annual pay for federal jobs approaching $100k, plus fat benefits packages and generous time off, taxpayers should expect top-notch performance. But we all know that, for the most part, federal departments and agencies are the gold standard for ineptitude and inefficiency. Because government employee unions bubble-wrap their members, our government must hire several people for every job that would require only a single worker in the real world.

Unlike jobs in the private sector, where every employee must contribute to profit or hit the highway, nobody other than Congressman Meadows seems to care about the buildings full of bodies accomplishing little or nothing. The agency and department heads are not concerned; it’s not their money! Plus, the measure of success and power in government is not what you accomplish, or how much money you save the taxpayers – it’s how many employees you accumulate.

And the head bureaucrats are as unaccountable as the line employees. When called to task by congressional oversight committees for poor performance, or even illegal acts, they no longer feel compelled to even answer questions. They know that their bread is buttered by the administration, not Congress. Who is in charge? Nobody. The buck stops nowhere.

At a time when our economy can no longer drag the dead weight of bloated government behind it, and our $20 trillion debt keeps rocketing, and there really is serious work that our employees should be doing, can’t somebody – maybe a presidential candidate for instance – at least mention government accountability?

The Heritage Foundation has studied the issue and made recommendations as part of its “Blueprint for Reform – A Comprehensive Policy Agenda for a New Administration in 2017“. Among many important reform policies, this ambitious project addresses the pay and benefits gaps between federal and private sector employees, and suggests some ways to make firing bad employees at least thinkable, if still not easy (see pages 99 – 102).

I’d like to see employee unions either shut down or severely restricted. The federal government is a monopoly, where the elected can spend taxpayer money to get themselves re-elected. Government employees should at least be hired at-will, just as they are in the private sector, so managers can hire, discipline, and fire without facing union intervention or a morass of federal regulations. And department officials must be made accountable to Congress too, or the notion of congressional “oversight” is no more than a shallow joke.

Like any rehab program, the first thing we have to do is admit that we have a problem. Then we have to work on some serious change in accountability.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

A change . . .
Would do you good.
I said a change . . .
Would do you good!

A Change Would Do You Good – Sheryl Crow

Mr. Trump, I Wrote a Speech For You. No Charge!

Posted on August 7, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

photo courtesy Salon.com

My fellow citizens, if you elect me, Donald Trump, to be your president, here are my domestic priorities for the first hundred days of my term:

Government Accountability and Reform

Government sector unions will be eliminated or restrictions imposed, such as: Unions would be prohibited from contributing to political candidates or having any involvement in political campaigns. Government employees would be employed “at will”, empowering managers to hire, fire, and discipline without union intervention. They would be subject to the same payroll and benefit laws as the private sector, including social security, 401k, and Medicaid coverage or private health insurance allowance. We can no longer tolerate a government where nobody is responsible for anything or ever gets fired.

Congress will establish biannual performance and zero-based budget requirements for every department and agency, and oversight committees will hold agency heads responsible for meeting goals, with the authority to discipline or discharge failing managers. Redundant and obsolete services and programs will be eliminated from agencies and departments. This is basic economics, understood by every American.

All elected officials will be subject to the same ethics standards and prosecution as private sector corporate officials, prohibiting insider trading, personal gain from transactions and decisions, nepotism, payoffs for campaign contributions, and any other breaches of trust. Why should elected officials get away with corruption that is not tolerated in private business?

Congressional term limits will be established. The power structure must be brought under control.

Congress will be required to produce timely budgets; continuing resolutions will be prohibited. The job of Congress is to budget and appropriate. If they don’t do that, we don’t need them.

Law and Order

My new IRS and FBI commissioners will investigate Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation for tax fraud and improper quid pro quo deals with foreign companies and governments. This kind of corruption must be brought to light and stopped once and for all.

Sanctuary cities will be denied federal funding. Existing immigration laws will be enforced at the borders and ports, and in all government offices and programs. Officials who fail or refuse to enforce any federal law will be disciplined or terminated. Without borders, we have no country. And without law enforcement, we have anarchy.

Federal involvement in local law enforcement will cease, including the use of consent decrees to impose federal control.

Health, Welfare, Housing and Education

The Affordable Health Care Act will be repealed and replaced by a congressionally approved plan which includes a provision for a federal assigned risk pool for pre-existing conditions.

Federal funding of all means-tested welfare and assistance programs and all educational programs will be limited to block grants to the states. Our Constitution intended the power of the people to reside in state governments, not federal. This is the United STATES of America.

Government funding of private health care providers specifically including Planned Parenthood will be prohibited.

The federal student loan program will be eliminated and restored to the private sector. Any program for relief from student loan debt will include provisions for clawback of public losses from the universities who received the student loan payments.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other government subsidized home loan programs will be phased out, restoring the mortgage industry to the private sector.

Tax Reform

Estate taxes will be permanently eliminated – it is double taxation. Corporate income tax will be significantly reduced to encourage repatriation of assets and domestic production. Personal income taxes will be simplified. Loopholes and carve-outs will be eliminated for businesses and individuals.

Businesses will receive tax incentives for providing modern technical training programs that meet their workforce needs and result in direct sustained employment of individuals, replacing unnecessary and unproductive college time and expense.

Immigration

Legal immigration rates and eligibilities will be revisited by Congress with impact analysis on jobs, the economy, security, and infrastructure. Charity will not be a consideration, as it is not a function of government. Illegal immigration will be treated and enforced as a criminal act.

These action items have the strong support of a majority of Americans. If Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell fail to take action on these important tasks, I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to admonish and encourage and even embarrass them. And if they still refuse to respond to the will of their constituents, as they have over the last many years, I will find other ways to give the people what they want.

Please vote for me, your humble servant, Donald Trump.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Well, it’s about time for things to get better
We want the truth, the truth and no more lies
We want freedom, justice and equality
I want it for you and I want it for me
Well, well
Give the people what they want!

Give the People What They Want – the O’Jays

Here’s a great song by the O’Jays – from Soul Train, 1975. Check it out!