What Do Jews and Muslims Have in Common?

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

photo courtesy Tea Party News Network

These are trying times.

I know every generation thinks their time in history is the most challenging, the most significant, the most “historic”. I will not claim that today’s challenges rise to the level of World War II, or the fall of the Roman Empire, or the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages.

Still, these are trying times. And the issue of our day is the rapid advance of extremist Muslims across the globe.

What baffles non-Muslims is how moderate (non-violent) Muslims seem to tolerate the horrendous violence of their radical brethren.

Our own president, who attended a Muslim elementary school, gives moderate Muslims a pass. In a CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria, President Obama said, “I don’t quibble with labels. I think we all recognize that this is a particular problem that has roots in Muslim communities. But I think we do ourselves a disservice in this fight if we are not taking into account the fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject this ideology.”

If an “overwhelming majority of Muslims” reject terrorism, why don’t they do something about it? Have you heard anything about moderate Muslims speaking up against the beheadings, murders, and abuse of children and women?

They don’t. I’m pretty sure that’s because they are AFRAID. Extremist Muslims murder moderate Muslims all over the world with glee and abandon. Would you be willing to make yourself a target of these maniacs?

European Jews were abused and murdered by the millions during World War II. Weighing heavy on the minds of Gentiles who weren’t there is the question: Why didn’t they put up a fight?

Of course, many Jews did. But many more left their homes, boarded the trains, and followed the orders of the Nazi murderers because . . . they were AFRAID.

Who wouldn’t be? It’s so easy for those of us who are not a target to diminish those who are, but who don’t put up a fight. And it’s so easy to disengage from the conflict and mind our own business.

If history teaches us anything, it is this: we must fight evil, wherever it surfaces. Not some of us, all of us. Tyranny, violence, and oppression is wrong, in any language and in any true religion. And while it’s hard for an individual to fight the power, it is much easier and more effective if we bring our numbers to the battle.

The Jews in World War II and all those who face extremist Islam today – Christians, Jews, moderate Muslims, and any unlucky soul who strays into the path of the evil Muslim mayhem – share the need to stay alive. Pity those who shrink from the task at hand.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Keep yourself alive, keep yourself alive.
It’ll take you all your time and money, honey you’ll survive
Keep yourself alive

Queen – Keep Yourself Alive

School Choice in DC – It’s Working

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

lion_gazelle poster Mark Roberts, graying but still athletic in his crisp suit and tie, stood in the center of his circle of 15 students. Every eye was on the articulate and energetic instructor as he probed their understanding of the character in their literature assignment, “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe. The high school juniors bounced their thoughtful and mature-beyond-years analyses off the teacher and each other. There was not a slacker in the room; each young scholar was as bright and engaged as the next. And I thought, “I have never seen a high school class like this.”

Like most conservatives, I have always advocated school choice. In my Adam Smith / free market / supply and demand worldview, whenever consumers have a choice the right products are delivered at the right cost, guided by the “invisible hand” of the marketplace. Competition drives excellence in every aspect of life. Why would education be any different?

Last week at Archbishop Carroll Catholic high school in Washington, DC I saw the proof of the theory firsthand. Without question, these kids have very bright futures and a leg up on their public-school peers. Maybe two legs, an arm, and a head.

Located in the middle of one of DC’s lowest-income neighborhoods, Archbishop Carroll has evolved over the years. The aging but well-maintained facility was originally a boy’s school, one of the first segregated schools in DC. Carroll later went co-ed, absorbed students from other Catholic schools, and in recent years has become a highly-sought educational alternative for families who want to extract their children from the grim, underperforming DC public schools. While Catholic religious training is offered at Archbishop Carroll, it is not required, and only about 20% of the students take CCD.

Tuition at Archbishop Carroll is about $13,000 per year – far below the amount taxpayers spend annually to educate students at the failing non-charter DC public schools. Many families pay the full tuition out-of-pocket. In the interest of diversity, discounts are offered to white, Asian, and Latino students (the student body is almost entirely African-American), as well as registered Catholics. Over half the students would not be able to afford to attend Archbishop Carroll without grants from the Opportunity Scholarship Program.

Archbishop Carroll competes with other private and charter schools for students by offering families a rigorous, no-nonsense academic program in a safe and uplifting environment. With strong emphasis on accountability, discipline and character development, Carroll provides the education product and opportunity for future success that most parents want for their children. But the competition doesn’t end there.

On a tour of the school organized by the Franklin Center as part of their “Amplify School Choice” conference, I asked student Wanofe Mideksa if she is a “superstar”, hand-picked to entertain us. “Not really,” she explained. “All the students here are high-achievers, because we have to compete to get into Carroll.” Students are selected for admission by test scores, admission essays and interviews. Once enrolled, they have to maintain their motivation levels. Most students take public transportation, some traveling as long as an hour each way. They wear jackets and ties, and dresses. They are addressed as “Mr.” and “Miss” and decorum is maintained at all times. The school deliberately sets tuition just beyond the scholarship amount to ensure that every family has “skin in the game.”

And Archbishop Carroll competes for the best instructors. “Our teachers don’t sit down during class,” said the school president, Mary Elizabeth Blaufuss. “You won’t find them texting when they should be teaching. They are here because they want to be part of a serious academic program.”

Education is no different from any other product or service. When consumers have choices and suppliers have to offer the very best products to compete for their business, everybody wins.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Did you ever have to make up your mind?
You pick up on one and leave the other one behind
It’s not often easy and not often kind
Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind? – The Lovin’ Spoonful

South Carolina Grassroots Conservatives – Something Old, Something New

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

TedCruz_at_2015SCTPC The South Carolina Tea Party Coalition gathered last weekend in Myrtle Beach, and there was never a dull moment. All the leading right-wing organizations were there, including the Tea Party Patriots, Freedom Works, the Heritage Foundation, the Tea Party Leadership Fund, and Americans for Prosperity. Contenders for the 2016 presidential race made stump speeches. Senators and congressmen tossed red meat to the hungry throngs.

The event sold out, skewering the notion that the Tea Party is in decline. Conservative celebrities lined up to participate. I have been attending events like this for a long time, and let me tell you – these people are more fired up than ever.

Some things haven’t changed. Barack Obama remains the target of the Tea Party’s ire, and the conservative faithful are more baffled than ever that so many Americans are still oblivious to the damage he continues to inflict on our nation. And the Tea Party is still an army of mostly gray-haired, fair-skinned grandmas and grandpas.

Yet the Tea Party and the conservative movement continues to evolve.

Lately the grassroots conservatives are as angry at Republicans as they are at arch-rival liberal Democrats. They stood and cheered as speaker after speaker exhorted them to “hold the Republicans in DC accountable.” Congressmen Louie Gohmert, Jim Bridenstine and Jeff Duncan got standing O’s specifically to thank them for their anti-Boehner votes. Still, Rep. Mick Mulvaney came out guns blazing in defense of his vote for the Speaker, and scored some points.

Minorities continue to gain in numbers and in comfort level in Tea Party circles. While they have always been warmly welcomed by the Tea Party, African American and Hispanic conservatives no longer feel conspicuous and are taking a significant leadership role.

A fairly large contingent of young conservatives also attended. One of the most compelling presentations came from Lauren Cooley of Turning Point USA. Cooley, a striking and very hip young lady, is winning high school and college students over to the conservative side at a wholesale clip. She single-handedly shut down the gender-studies department and its series of obscene programs at Furman University, and handed attendees to a Jesse Jackson event a list of unflattering direct quotes by him, standing her ground in a confrontation with the embarrassed sponsors. Her charges carry the pithy message, “Big Government Sucks”, and in growing numbers they understand and articulate the abuses heaped on young Americans by their government in recent years.

But the biggest change in the conservative movement is more subtle, and significantly more important. Grassroots conservatives have learned that they must work within the system to accomplish real reform. The days of loud complaints but little action are history, as conservative activists now work to reorganize precincts, run for local offices, and learn policy issues in detail, making them formidable citizen leaders and constituents. And the top conservative organizations all have focused goals with serious action plans in place to accomplish them.

Two larger-than-life issues in South Carolina took center stage at the convention. A determined group of conservatives led by Greenville activist Diane Hardy contends that primary registration by party would prevent election perversions such as moderate Republican Lyndsey Graham’s narrow win over several conservative primary candidates. Graham’s name, by the way, was roundly booed whenever uttered at the event.

Another policy issue that caught a lot of attention is the failure of the state to honestly implement its new law that struck down the Common Core standards. A panel was assigned to write new state standards, but instead they merely copied the Common Core standards and gave it a new name. An aggressive campaign is underway by Shari Few and her group, South Carolina Parents Involved in Education, to rewrite the standards.

South Carolina is an early primary state, a fact not lost on presidential hopefuls. Dr. Ben Carson was soft-spoken, but his conservative convictions were rock-hard. He admitted a lack of experience and expertise in both foreign and domestic affairs, promising to surround himself with smart people. Senator Ted Cruz made a rock-star entrance and then machine-gunned his well-rehearsed talking points with precision and authority, if not much inspiration. Cruz knows exactly what buttons to push. Rick Santorum was sincere, but didn’t show much fire in the belly. Donald Trump was . . . well, you know. Arrogant and embarrassingly shallow. But he was warmly received.

In conversation and informal straw polls, most of the attendees seemed to favor Scott Walker and Dr. Carson for president.

Nobody went home from this event feeling cheated. I’m sure this group from South Carolina provides a good cross-section of the Tea Party nationwide. And while the grassroots conservative movement has been consistent over the years in its values and aims, one can’t help but sense the changes underway.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Sha la la la la la,
Live for today!
And don’t worry, ’bout tomorrow, hey
Live for today!

Live for Today – the Grass Roots

Where Are the Conservatives in Congress? I Don’t Know!

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

photo courtesy of wallsave.com I don’t know about you, but I am kind of confused right now.

I was furious that the conservatives in Congress did not stand up to remove John Boehner as Speaker of the House. Boehner had just given the lame-duck Democrats control of federal spending through September 2015 in exchange for withheld funding for DHS. Paraphrased: “Duh, okay guys, even though the Democrats lost the election, let’s give them control of the budget for 10 more months, and then they can beat us up in the press for slacking on national security.”

It was just the latest in a long list of conservative policy blunders by Speaker Boehner. I could not understand it at all. My congressman, Mick Mulvaney, justified his vote for Boehner, saying, “This coup today was bound to fail. And in fact, it failed worse than I expected, falling 11 votes short of deposing the Speaker.”

Then he said, “and I was joined today by the likes of Jim Jordan, Raul Labrador, Trey Gowdy, Mark Sanford, Trent Franks, Tom McClintock, Matt Salmon, Tom Price, Sam Johnson, and Jeb Hensarling. If I ‘sold out’ then I did so joined by some of the most tried and tested conservative voices in Washington.”

Hmmm. They were 11 votes short. And Mulvaney was joined by 10 conservatives who were also afraid to vote against Boehner. Seems to me if those ten guys and my guy had voted against Boehner, we would have a new conservative leadership.

I guess maybe these guys learned math via Common Core. But I don’t know.

Anyway, Boehner was confirmed as Speaker. And he immediately started making conservative noises. Then my guy, Mulvaney, made an impassioned speech to Congress in support of his amendment to defund Obama’s executive amnesty – a genuinely conservative act.

I don’t know.

Did Boehner cut a deal behind closed doors to rein in the conservatives? Will he do an abrupt “about face” and start acting like an adult Republican? Have the newly elected Republican congressmen caved in already, or do they have a conservative game plan that they are not telling us about?

I just don’t know.

I’m going to the South Carolina Tea Party convention this week to hear a number of leading conservative thinkers and candidates, and the top right-wing organizations – the Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party Leadership Fund, Freedomworks, Heritage Action, Dr. Ben Carson, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Louie Gohmert, Rep. Jim Bridenstine, Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, and others – including my guy, Rep. Mick Mulvaney.

Maybe I will get a clearer sense of direction. Until then, I just don’t know!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I don’t know. I don’t know!
I don’t know where I’m a gonna go
When the volcano blows!

Volcano – Jimmy Buffett

Okay, all you Parrot Heads! Let’s do a little early spring break with Jimmy Buffett!

God Bless Texas – for Louie Gohmert!

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard 1

louie_gohmert_AP Finally – FINALLY a Republican congressman showed the courage and intelligence to stand up to Speaker of the House John Boehner. It’s Louie Gohmert, from Texas.

On Fox News today Gohmert said, “I’m putting my name out there today to be another candidate for Speaker.” He voiced his frustrations with Boehner, the same ones we all share, saying, “’You deceived us when you went to Obama and Pelosi to get your votes for the Cromnibus. You said you’d fight amnesty tooth and nail. You didn’t, you funded it!”

There is considerable discontent with Speaker Boehner among Republicans. A recent poll showed 60% of voting Republicans want him out. But more importantly, GOP Congressmen are tired of leaders who only show strength against their own members and never against the opposition. Many representatives have hidden beneath their desks, fearing loss of committee appointments and campaign funds if they fail to toe Boehner’s line. Some who opposed him in the past have paid the price.

Now those who have been hiding in the shadows can come out without fear. A dragon-slayer has stepped up. Many young conservatives ran for, and won, their seats on the promise of opposition to Boehner and the DC insiders. Finally, they have veteran leadership. All that’s needed is for 29 members to vote in the first round for somebody – anybody – other than Boehner, and a real election for Speaker will follow.

The fear of reprisals is so lame and short-sighted – if you are tired of getting bullied around, kick the bully the hell out! Punch back for a change! Simple, isn’t it?

So-called “conservative” congressmen who vote for Boehner this time around will have plenty of ‘splainin’ to do! Let your rep know before Tuesday’s vote that you are watching.

God Bless Texas – for giving us Louie Gohmert!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

God blessed Texas with His own hand
Brought down angels from the Promised Land
Gave them a place where they could dance
If you wanna see Heaven, brother, here’s your chance
Well, I’ve been sent to spread the message
‘God blessed Texas!’

Little Texas – God Blessed Texas

The ‘Leader of the Pack’ Is Out There Somewhere

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 2

photo credit: (Yuri Yuriev/AFP/Getty Images)

The new year, 2015, will be here in a couple of days. The ball will drop in Times Square, and almost simultaneously hats will drop into the 2016 presidential election ring as campaigning starts in earnest. The GOP is on a roll, having won both houses, and fully expects to win the White House by default as President Obama’s approval rating tracks right along with the wind chill in Fairbanks.

I admit I have never understood how the Republican party filters down to its final presidential candidate. Obviously, whoever would make the best president should be the party’s candidate of choice. But there doesn’t seem to be any established criteria for what makes a good conservative president. I’m pretty sure the Republican leadership would say their candidate should be whoever is the most “electable”.

Here’s my simple conservative list of required qualifications for the “leader of the pack”:

Honesty. What distinguishes conservatives from liberals? Essentially, it is respect for the truth. The word “right” means correct. It also means just. Maybe it’s no coincidence that it also means conservative. We Rock on the Right Side because we know that there is right and wrong, and the truth is always right. Many liberal Democrats openly lie. They aren’t even embarrassed about it (when will Al Sharpton publicly apologize for the Tawana Brawley lie?). The liberal playbooks (Saul Alinsky, Cloward and Piven) say “the end justifies the means”, and if you have to lie to the people to get what you want (political power, personal profit, etc.), so be it. Communist countries embrace dishonesty – lying has been raised to an art form in North Korea – and our current administration seems to operate in “Kim Jong Un” mode. “You can keep your insurance,” “the Benghazi attack was because of a video,” “all of our hard drives crashed simultaneously”.
In the age of YouTube, our opponents can be beat to death with their own lies.The best way to differentiate ourselves from our liberal political opponents is to be honest. That means our conservative presidential candidate had better have a squeaky clean personal and professional history, and be a straight shooter. A person who will lie to his or her spouse will certainly have no problem lying to anyone else. We want a leader we can trust.

Economic Savvy. Our current president has never held a private sector job – never flipped a burger, fixed a tire, or washed a window. He has never produced wealth for himself or an employer. While he has been extensively involved in the redistribution of other people’s money, he has never built anything on his own. Even his short legal career in racial discrimination cases was funded by the government. To compound the problem, once in office, Obama surrounded himself with academic elites – almost nobody in this administration has ever held a private sector job. The results were predictable – while the stock market, well-connected corporate cronies, and bureaucrats enjoy record gains, family incomes lag far below pre-Obama levels and the few new jobs that were created went to immigrants.
The US president is the head of the largest economy in the world – it is unthinkable that anyone in that position should not have extensive experience, knowledge, and proven skill in free market economics. Nothing is more important to every US citizen than economic security and opportunity for our families. We want a financial guru at the helm.

Leadership. Our president is referred to as the “leader of the free world.” This person must have extraordinary qualities that inspire us to follow – qualities like the ability to make difficult decisions firmly and fairly, the vision and discernment to see alternative solutions that may escape others, and the humanity to care about those in his charge. A leader is brave. A leader takes responsibility and doesn’t make excuses. A leader is optimistic and forward-thinking. A leader is dedicated and hard-working. We want a president who knows what leadership is.

We have all known people who have these qualities. They are out there. Somewhere between the Atlantic and the Pacific is the person who could get this big ship turned around and headed the “right” way again. It won’t be easy, with the state of big-money corruption in DC and the embarrassing ineptness of our current party leadership. But it can be done.

I’ll give you another couple of days off. And then let’s get to work.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

My folks were always putting him down
They said, he came from the wrong side of town
They told me, he was bad, but I knew he was sad
That’s why I fell for the leader of the pack

Leader Of the Pack – the Shangri-Las

Shutdown!

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 2

Republican congressional leaders, and many of their sheepish members, are all puckered up over ShutDown.

“ShutDown? ShutDown! Oh, no, that would be too risky. Remember when we got blamed for shutting down the government? Whenever there is a shutdown, we ALWAYS get the blame!”

So the Republican leadership strong-armed their members into passing the CRomnibus (Continuing Resolution / Omnibus) spending bill, giving Obama and Reid everything they wanted in the way of flatulent government spending all the way to September of 2015, the end of the fiscal year. Never mind that the Republicans won big in the November elections and now hold majorities in both houses. Now they can take it easy in DC until next football season, when the Redskins will no longer have RG3 to kick around.

“We just couldn’t take the risk,” they said. Somebody might think we Republicans are MEANIES if we don’t commit to spend another $1.1 TRILLION for such critical programs as a new National Women’s Museum, continuing the corporate crony Import/Export Bank, and other little items like ObamaCare and benefits for illegal immigrants.

John Hayward, in Human Events, succinctly pointed out the lunacy of it all, saying:

There was no reason to give the defeated Democrats anything except a stop-gap bill to fund the government through January, at which point the incoming Republican majorities should have exercised control over everything. If the Democrats don’t like that deal, let them shut down the government in a fit of pique, and tell voters how the party they just threw out of power should be allowed to control their lives for an extra year. Not only would that be smart politics – giving the Republicans more fiscal leverage to stand up for America against Obama’s amnesty, instead of just funding for the Department of Homeland Security – but it would represent more sensible and responsible government. All of this multi-trillion-dollar monstrosity is linked together; all of it should be on the table; the flab should be liposuctioned out of every agency at once in a comprehensive plan for fiscal sanity and increased American liberty.

Why did the Republican leadership do it? Why did they fritter away a golden opportunity to actually shrink government, as the entire GOP promised in their campaign speeches? And, simultaneously, giving support to the knuckle-head programs they were elected to stop?

“Shutdown! OMG, we’ll be accused of SHUUUUUT-DOOOOOOOWN!”

According to Ron Paul, “Most House and Senate members are so terrified of another government shutdown that they would rather vote for a 1,774-page bill they have not read than risk even a one or two-day government shutdown.” Paul says instead of briefly shutting down 20% of the government offices, better we should permanently close major parts of the federal government – starting with the Federal Reserve, and followed closely by the Internal Revenue Service.

The Democrats aren’t afraid of shutting down the government as a tactic. Rush Limbaugh pointed out that they voted to do just that when all 212 Democrat representatives in the House voted against the rule that set the stage for passage of the CRomnibus spending bill. “In other words, 212 Democrats voted against the rule, voted against bringing up the final vote on the omnibus bill. Now, you could say, as I just did, that the Democrats essentially voted to shut down the government, but nowhere would this ever be portrayed as what actually happened,” Rush reported. They weren’t the least bit worried about being blamed for the big SD.

But Boehner and friends shrink in terror at the very thought.

Frankly, I don’t get it. I have lived through a number of government shutdowns, without any negative lingering effects. I know, last time the big SD happened we paid some people double-time-and-a-half to put roadblocks on the highway so tourists could not see Mount Rushmore as they drove through the Black Hills. And we spent extra money on barriers to keep World War II vets from seeing their monument. But everybody got their government checks on time, soldiers and sailors still reported for duty, and as far as I know even the government employees who didn’t go to work got full back pay (bonus!) as soon as the SHUTDOWN crisis was over.

Not all Republicans are weak-kneed milktoasts. 67 GOP congressmen, including my rep Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), voted against the CRomnibus. More Democrats voted against it than for it, but for different reasons. Sadly, the majority of Republican members acquiesced to their leadership. You can see how your congressman voted on this and other key issues at the Heritage Action Scorecard.

Personally, I am all for government shut down. If that’s what it takes to get the budget under control, I say shut ‘er down. And while we are at it, let’s take a good hard look at replacing the Republican leadership.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Shut it off, shut it off
Buddy, now I shut you down!

Shut Down – the Beach Boys

A repeat, but worth repeating . . .

Who’s Naughty? Who’s Nice?

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

NAUGHTY:

ISIS, Al Qaeda and Muslim Extremists: Is there anything naughtier than cutting off somebody’s head? Or slamming jet airliners into buildings and forcing people to choose whether to jump to their deaths or burn alive? Why is Senator Dianne Feinstein insisting the United States is naughty for trying to acquire intel from these Muslim creeps? Feinstein and her liberal Democrat cohorts should get a lump of coal in their stockings for defending the Muslim extremists.
Republican leadership: $18 trillion dollars in debt, and they don’t see anything wrong with that. Boehner and McConnell pushed through the CRomnibus spending bill (Continuing Resolution + Omnibus) that gives President Obama and his anti-American liberal friends everything they wanted – another $1.1 TRILLION dollars of spending. This and other ugly lame-duck yecch-fests includes full funding of the corrupt and dysfunctional ObamaCare program, amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants including billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded benefits, save-the-rhinoceros funding, and more. Uggh. Much more.
Bill Ayers and the other America-hating Obama mentors: Ayers, in an interview with Iran’s government-controlled newspaper, said “the [United States] is indeed a terrorist nation.” And “the American people are the greatest purveyors of violence on earth over the past half century, and the foremost threat to world peace today.”
Race-baiters: Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (I will not honor them with the title “Reverend” until they show me a congregation and a mission that appears to be Christian) continue to foment racial division based on lies and ugly bigotry for nothing more than political power and personal profit. How disappointing is it that the first black president has set race relations back fifty years?

NICE:

The principled and honest conservative Congressmen and Senators: Many of our elected officials are actually doing what they promised their constituents they would do – they are working hard to stop the liberal onslaught against our economy and values.
Our men and women serving in the military: They put up with ridiculous rules of engagement, social engineering, politicized leadership, unjust pay and benefits, and utter disrespect and scorn from our administration and many of our legislators. Our soldiers’ Christmas stockings should be STUFFED.
The American Taxpayers: while our federal government forces them to fork over their earnings, and confiscates their property at will, the taxpayers work harder, take care of their families and employees, and find a little extra to give to those who truly need their help.

He’s making a list, checking it twice
Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town!

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (trad.) – Pentatonix

Best Santa Claus rendition EVER!

GOP Congressmen – Time To Take A Stand!

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

take-a-stand Have you ever had to tell the boss he’s wrong?

One of the stupidest things I ever did is something I am still proud of. Way back in the day I was a sophomore on the junior varsity basketball team, hoping to move up to the varsity squad. The first week of practice we were struggling to adjust to our new coach, who operated in Bobby Knight mode with a lot of yelling, cursing, and finger-poking-in-the-chest intimidation, but without as much knowledge and strategy as the famous Hoosier coach.

We were running a drill called the “three-man weave” where three guys pass the ball back and forth while running a weave down the court without dribbling, and the last one shoots a layup. Only instead of a basketball, we were throwing a huge 15-pound medicine ball. Coach charged up and down the sidelines, voicing his displeasure with our lack of manhood. My friend Larry and I were next up, and we charged off the baseline with another guy. Now, Larry was a great little player. But he couldn’t have weighed 90 pounds dripping wet wearing clothes, shoes, and a winter coat with bricks in the pockets. My pass was a little bit too far in front of him, and Larry didn’t have the strength in his sharp-shooting but skinny little arms to haul it in.

Coach lit into Larry like he had just sold his sister to a cannibal tribe, with maximum volume and vigorous finger-poking-in-the-chest. And I popped. “Come on coach, he couldn’t catch that!”

You could have heard a pin drop. Coach walked over to me, red-faced, eyes bugging out. I can still see that face, but I don’t remember what he said, because my entire life was whizzing before my eyes. Needless to say, I didn’t make the varsity squad. Hell, he hardly gave me any playing time on the junior varsity, and nothing I did on the court was going to change that. But Coach did seem to mellow a little after that episode, and Larry actually was doing pretty well, until his hard-scrabble itinerant family moved on halfway through the season.

I remember that snapshot event like yesterday because for one moment as a geeky kid I stood up and said “hell no” to the boss, knowing I was right and he was wrong, and that it mattered.

Our newly-elected Congress was sent to Washington, DC to stop the damage our nation has endured under the Democrats for the past six years. Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans oppose Obamacare, support energy development, and want our southern border secured. The majority of us think it’s wrong for our government to choose winners and losers based on political party, gender, or race. We are terrified that our children face a national debt that has grown by $7 trillion dollars under President Obama.

And now President Obama’s unilateral, illegal and unconstitutional grant of amnesty, featuring work visas and eligibility for taxpayer-paid benefits to tens of millions of illegal immigrants (and millions more who will flood the untended border gates upon hearing the news) will cost the taxpayers another $2 trillion according to the Heritage Foundation.

Sadly, even as Republicans are staged to take majority control of the House and Senate, the party’s leadership does not seem willing to hear or follow the voice of the People. Next week Congress will vote on funding the government’s budget in the form of either a continuing resolution (CR) or an omnibus spending bill, providing them the leverage they need to defund executive amnesty. Despite the polls and the landslide election victory, the GOP leadership cites a list of imaginary roadblocks. “We don’t want to get blamed for ‘shutting down the government'”, they wail, despite the total lack of evidence that this tactic has ever had lasting repercussions. Another excuse offered is: “We can’t defund an agency that operates on fees rather than funding from our discretionary budget,” a claim which was totally debunked by the Congressional Research Service.

Then, according to Congressman Louie Gohmert, the House Republican leadership pulled a “bait and switch” on its members, making unannounced changes to Congressman Ted Yoho’s defunding bill moments before 216 Republican congressmen voted in favor of it. The last-minute additions may actually grease the skids for the president’s amnesty. This is the tactic made famous by Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when she said, “We have to pass the (ObamaCare) bill to know what’s in it.”

Conservative firebrand Rush Limbaugh says there is only possible reason for the Republican leadership to oppose the will of the majority of voters and their own members: they must actually support the President’s amnesty plan.

62 Congressmen, including my own South Carolina representative Mick Mulvaney, showed courage and resolve by signing Congressman Matt Salmon’s letter to the house appropriations chairman, Harold Rogers, requesting a defunding rider. On a Facebook Town Hall meeting on Friday, Mulvaney said, “I have already told my leadership that I will vote against the Omnibus spending bill if it doesn’t contain defunding language.”

To those Congressmen and women who refuse to tolerate the bullying and finger-poking-in-the-chest, I say, “Good on ya.” And I encourage you to demand the same courage from your counterparts on the hill who know it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes you just have to take a stand when you know the boss is wrong.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

If you are confused check with the sun
Carry a compass to help you along
Your feet are going to be on the ground
Your head is there to move you around

Stand – R.E.M.

FTC Endorses Hacking Private Data

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Hacker_Detected So there you are, minding your own business, running a company that provides a much-needed medical service – lab analysis of specimens to help doctors diagnose and treat cancers and other dread diseases. And out of the blue you find you are under attack by your own government.

Michael Daugherty, founder and CEO of LabMD, has been through hell, at the hands of the “Devil Inside the Beltway”.

His story defies logic and reason. Why would the federal government – specifically the FTC – join forces with a for-profit extortionist hacker to wreak havoc on a private company? And how could our court system not recognize theft of personal data as a crime?

Here’s the story, in a nutshell: In 2008 a LabMD employee, against company policy, installed a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing application called LimeWire to her computer so she could share music files with other subscribers. She just wanted to listen to music. Unfortunately, this opened a port which made other data on her computer accessible to outsiders. And an opened port is all the Devil needs to do his evil work.

In this case, the Devil is a company named Tiversa, Inc. – the self-proclaimed “World Leader in P2P Cyberintelligence”. Tiversa developed a program which scours the internet, looking for open P2P ports and any tasty files that might be exposed, in the hope that a particularly delectable file might be useful for the purpose of extortion.

During the very short time that the LabMD employee’s computer was vulnerable, Tiversa grabbed a file that included patient data including social security numbers, medical codes, etc. – information that could be used by a bad actor for identity theft, blackmail, or other nefarious purposes. And what did Tiversa do with their ill-gotten booty? First they attempted to extort LabMD with an expensive, open-ended and loosely-defined service contract. When LabMD CEO Daugherty logically told them to take a hike, they turned the file over to the FTC as an indictment of LabMD’s failure to protect their clients’ data.

This is where it gets crazy.

The federal government is there to protect and serve its constituents, right? You would think that if somebody hacks into your computer system, and steals your sensitive information and then blackmails you with the release of it, the feds will help you nail them. Right?

Instead, the FTC, typical of today’s over-reaching federal bureaucracy, decided to join forces with the bad guys to beat up on one of those despicable, “for-profit” private businesses. “You didn’t build that!” , they declare. “And we will punish you for your success!”

Instead of pursuing the people who aggressively sought to steal sensitive data (they claim their program performs exponentially more searches than Google) the FTC went after the victims of the theft. Most of their victims acquiesced to the relentless FTC pressure and accepted demands for consent decrees (guilty without proof). LabMD and Michael Daugherty took a courageous stand against this extortion, and continue their brave battle today.

The obvious questions beckon: what is the relationship between the top brass of the FTC and for-profit hackers like Tiversa? Will the federal courts recognize data as property, and accept theft of data as theft of property? And most importantly – when a federal agency like the FTC (or the IRS or EPA) lines up its infinite roster of taxpayer-funded lawyers against an individual or private company with limited resources in a ideological battle, is there any hope that justice will prevail?

Cyber-security is the 600 pound gorilla in the room. Our government admits that China, North Korea, and Russia routinely hack our government databases. It’s bad enough that foreign bad guys feverishly work at worming their way into our national databases. How can we tolerate our own government cooperating with extortionist hackers who attack our private data?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Listen, Do you want to know a secret?
Do you promise not to tell?
Closer, Let me whisper in your ear,
Say the words you long to hear,
I’m in love with you!

The Beatles – Do You Want To Know A Secret

No live video, just a good old Beatles song here: