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

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

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

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!

My Economic Plan is Even Better Than Hillary’s!

Posted on July 29, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard 2

Hillary-Money

I studied and taught economics but I still could never quite figure out the Democrat’s plan to improve our economy. But now I think I finally get it. I listened to Bernie and Hillary at the DNC convention, and it has all become clear to me. In fact, thanks to Hillary’s lesson in Democrat economics, I think I can now even beat the Democrats’ plan for creating jobs and improving the economy.

Hillary wants to at least double the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, right? She says $20 per hour would be even better. Well, I say if $15 is good, and $20 is better, why not $50? Heck, why not $100 an hour? Just think, if all the burger-flippers and lawn mowers and hotel maids made $100 an hour ($208k per year) they could buy so much stuff that there would be millions of new manufacturing jobs to make all the things they want to buy.

Plus everybody could eat their meals at fancy, expensive restaurants. So those restaurants would have to hire more waiters, and dishwashers and janitors. They would all make at least $208,000 a year, so they could buy more stuff too! You see how dollars circulate when a Democrat runs the economy? Everybody wins!

Wait, if everybody eats at fancy restaurants, the burger-flippers wouldn’t have anything to do. Oh well, they could play Pokémon Go when business is slow. Or they could stay home and do tele-work like our federal government employees do when it gets hot outside. Problem solved. Maybe the federal workers are playing Pokémon Go, too.

Hillary also wants to open our borders and ports so there will be many more immigrants coming to our country. She says we need more immigrants to do the low-paid jobs that Americans don’t want to do. She says immigrants are better at starting businesses than Americans are. She says immigrants add a lot more to the economy than they take from it. Well, then! If immigrants are so great for our economy, let’s invite all of the people in Africa to move in with us! And Mexico, and Myanmar . . . there are a lot of potential immigrants all over the world. Just think how great our economy will be when they all live here!

Oh wait, if minimum wage is $100 an hour, there won’t be any low-paid jobs for them to take. Hmm. But hey, there will be so many new jobs from everybody else buying stuff with their new higher wages, the immigrants can take those jobs. Hmm. But then where would the Americans work?

Shoot, this is getting kind of hard.

Well, Hillary says college education should be free for everybody, and student loans should just be written off. Probably a lot of Americans won’t have to work, then, because they will be going to college full time with free room and board. So there will be jobs for the immigrants. That’s how Greece does it. Oops, that didn’t work out very well for Greece, did it? And I guess maybe the immigrants will all be in free college too . . .

Dang it, it seemed to make sense when Hillary explained it. So how are we going to create jobs and grow the economy?

Oh, I know. Let’s just raise taxes on the rich!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Said when this is all over
You’ll be in clover
We’ll go out and spend
All of your Blue Money!

Blue Money – Van Morrison

Liberal Democrat “Divide and Conquer” Strategy Is Doomed

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

divide-and-conquer Liberals fervently believe in protecting women and women’s rights. They claim that anybody who is not a liberal Democrat must hate women. Meanwhile, they insist on accepting hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants, most of whom require that their women are not allowed to show their faces in public and must be totally subservient to their husbands. So which is it, liberals? Are you for women, or for Muslims?

Liberals also claim to be the champions of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transvestites, and all other sexual subdivisions. Most Muslims don’t tolerate sexual nonconformity, and in some Muslim countries LGBT’s are routinely executed. If I were gay, I sure wouldn’t join the Democrat support for the Islamization of the western world.

Radical environmentalists are almost universally liberal Democrats. So are labor union members. But wait, isn’t the liberal war on coal and fossil fuels responsible for the loss of countless jobs in those industries? Hmm, it would be hard for me to vote for Hillary if I had just lost my high-paying energy sector job while billions of taxpayer dollars are still being dumped into dead-end solar projects to pay off Democrat campaign contributors. In fact, no American worker can be happy about job-killing policies like rampant immigration and anti-energy regulation with no proven benefits.

Well, at least the liberal Democrats can still claim that they are the only Americans who care about blacks and Hispanics, right? After all, it is their policies that have resulted in all the progress enjoyed by minorities over the last sixty years. Look at how much better off the citizens of Detroit and Baltimore are thanks to their monolithic Democrat governments. And check out how our first African-American president has improved race relations, and education, and employment, and income equality. Oh, that’s right, those things have all gone straight down the toilet for minorities and everybody else (except politically-connected Wall Street bankers) since Obama’s coronation.

This mind-numbing hypocrisy is why common sense Americans can’t understand how liberal Democrats get elected and re-elected.

The liberal game plan has always been to divide Americans into as many sub-groups as possible, and then claim to be the champion of each one. But wouldn’t you think they would have to actually show some kind of success to keep winning the support of all of these groups?

Fortunately, the “divide and conquer” strategy is on its last legs – common sense Americans of every stripe can’t go for that any longer. We know that all people have the same wants and needs, so pitting groups of us against each other is ill-fated. A good education is as important to a minority family as it is to a white family (who will soon achieve minority status anyway). We all need good jobs at fair wages. Nobody wants his wife, mother, or daughter to be abused, or likes dirty air and water, or would put the sick and elderly out on the street. And certainly nobody wants a government so huge and awkward that it can’t get out of its own way, much less provide cost-effective benefits.

We’ve had enough political promises that pander to one group or another. Candidates, tell us what you will do for America.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I can’t go for being twice as nice.
I can’t go for just repeating the same old lines.

I can’t go for that, no!

I Can’t Go For That – Daryl Hall and Rumer

Tough Political Decision? Let History Be Your Guide

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Decisions, decisions. Man is a thinking animal, and every waking moment involves decisions. Most are ordinary choices of personal comfort. Some decisions are a matter of life or death, or even something so paramount that one will risk his own life to achieve the desired result.

Some of us are better at making decisions than others. But one thing is clear – at the root of every decision is one primary element: self-interest. And that’s a good thing. The desire to improve our lives and the lives of the ones we love is universal, timeless and unbreakable. God knew what he was doing when he designed the human soul.

God also put us all on the same planet, so we not only have to serve our own self-interests, we also must co-exist. And that’s where it gets interesting. We all want what is best for ourselves and our families, but we can’t agree on the best way to make that happen. What might be best for you could be terrible for me, or vice-versa.

Those who see life from the “left” side believe individuals should sacrifice personal freedoms to gain physical and economic security as a group. Socialism calls for more control by the state, assuming that most people are not so good at making decisions for themselves. If decisions are made by fewer humans who are presumably smarter than the rest of us, there will be less likelihood of catastrophic failure. Individuals will have their basic needs met, but will not have the chance to make decisions that might lead to far greater success and happiness for themselves and others.

Those on the “right” side holds the opposite as truth. They would rather make their own decisions, because nobody is more interested in his own well-being than oneself. One may totally fail, but he would rather have the opportunity to achieve a higher level of happiness and fulfillment than settle for bland shared security.

There is, of course, middle ground, and that’s where the war between left and right takes place. Fortunately, in this political battleground of decisions and the philosophical fog of war, there is a bright, neon sign showing the correct path. It’s called history.

History proves that quality of life is always best where individuals have more freedom to make decisions in their own self-interest. And hell on Earth is where all decisions are made by the state. If more state control is so great, how did that work out for the people of the Soviet Union? Or Cambodia? Or Nazi Germany?

Why does our entire educational system deny this historical fact? How does a generation of our youth clamor to follow socialist demagogues who promise security but don’t explain the consequences of relinquishing individual rights and freedoms? Could it be that the few who would be the designated decision-makers are acting in their own self-interest?

History also shows that there were, and still are, individuals who understand the value of individual freedom so well that they would make the ultimate decision to put their lives on the line to preserve it.

My message is this: when faced with a decision between group security and individual freedom, let history be your guide.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice

Free Will – Rush

Watch this fantastic Rush rocker featuring drummer Neal Peart and his HUGE set of DW drums. Free Will!

My New Tax Proposal – You Will Love It

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard 1

I will be so happy to help you with that problem, sir! I hope you are having a wonderful day!

I have a great new tax reform plan. It’s so much simpler than the 73,954 pages in our current tax code. In fact, it is only one paragraph long.

Here it is:

Any company that provides customer service or technical support using a call center in Bangladesh, India, Costa Rica, the Philippines, or any other place where people speak English but are totally incompetent, helpless, ingratiating, untrained, patronizing, overpaid, clueless, freaking idiots, must pay a 99% excise tax on all net income from sales in the United States. All other companies and citizens will pay 10% of their income.

What do you think?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I’m not like them, But I can pretend
The sun is gone, But I have a light
The day is done, And I’m having fun
I think I’m dumb
Maybe just happy, I think I’m dumb

Dumb – Nirvana

Corruption – Time To Raise A Little Hell

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

75% of Americans think our government is corrupt. No kidding?

Everybody knows the game:

Taxpayers give money to government.

Corrupt politicians give some of that money (or favors) to organizations

Organizations kick back some of the money to the corrupt politicians as campaign contributions.

The politicians use the dirty money to get re-elected.

Return to number 1.

The corruption game is nothing new. Call it payola, quid pro quo, scratch my back – it has gone on ever since the first government came into being, and still occurs all over the world. In Mexico and similar “banana republics” nothing gets done by government without illegal payoffs.

No, the corruption game isn’t new, but the playbook has changed. Until recently, corrupt deals were made between public officials and private businesses. That arrangement was problematic – when the public found out about massive corruption (back then we had real journalism) the citizens would raise hell until the corruption was at least somewhat beat down. They didn’t like their tax dollars going to fat cat big business operators. But corrupt politicians didn’t appreciate these temporary interruptions in the game. So instead of using corporate cronies to fatten their wallets, they learned to cycle the dirty money through government employee unions, quasi-government organizations and NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) instead of private businesses.

This week’s scandal du jour is the uproar over Planned Parenthood’s use of taxpayer money for purposes that most citizens find repugnant. The dollars aren’t huge – only a half a billion or so – but what they do with the money sure has a lot of taxpayers’ underwear in a knot. Moreover, Planned Parenthood uses a good chunk of the money for campaign contributions and lobbying. They claim the government funds they get are applied only to honorable pursuits. But we all know that money is “fungible”.

Remember Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? These behemoth quasi-government organizations almost buried our economy in 2008 when the real-estate bubble of their creation popped and the government bailed out the big banks. Even President Obama, a master of quid pro quo, called the Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac business model “heads we win, tails you lose.” We really still haven’t recovered. But the Fannie and Freddy corruption machine keeps chugging along, making big contributions to campaigns, paying monster salaries to its officials, and playing fast and loose with taxpayer money with almost no oversight.

Government employee unions are now the largest group of contributors to political campaigns. What a concept: the unions contribute taxpayer money to the very politicians who promise to protect their jobs and raise their wages. Jefferson would have loved that one.

Another cool quasi-government corruption setup is the Export/Import Bank, which uses taxpayer money to make risk-free loans that benefit crony corporations like Boeing, General Electric, and Caterpillar, to foreign governments and companies, some of whom actually compete with other domestic companies. There are all kinds of opportunities for bank employees to profit personally from shady arrangements. Some honest legislators, prodded by conservative constituents, may have finally put an end to this game, although General Electric and their political partners in crime are trying hard to keep it going.

And it’s not just about dirty politicians seeking campaign funds any more; federal agencies are in on the act. They now extort funds from US companies by threatening huge fines for trumped-up regulatory violations. Agencies like the EPA, FCC, NLRB and others routinely set up schemes that trade a “consent decree” (an agreement to not destroy a business with a long, expensive legal action) for cash. The feds also use consent decrees to take control over local government operations, such as police departments and local utilities.

Some federal corruption is simple and creative. Conservatives in Congress were furious to learn that VA Administration bigshots received big bonuses by faking the real performance records of their agency while patients died waiting for care. When the congressmen found out these guys could not be fired (this belongs in Ripley’s Believe It or Not!) they passed a law that making it possible to fire VA officials. So how many were fired? You guessed it. Zero.

The exploding corruption culture in Washington, DC is not a partisan issue – both Democrats and Republicans say they oppose corruption, but only a few true Conservatives are making any effort to do something about it. Leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump admitted paying off politicians. One can only assume the practice would continue under his watch.

One thing hasn’t changed. The only way to kill corruption, or at least slow it down, is for citizens to raise hell about it.

Ask your public officials and candidates what they plan to do about corruption. Give them specific examples. Most of them don’t mention the issue and haven’t even thought about it. Let’s raise a little hell.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

If you want to see an angel
You got to find it where it fell
If you want to get to heaven
You got to raise a little hell

If You Want To Get To Heaven –
Ozark Mountain Daredevils

Another great seventies band, still on the road, gray hair and all, bangin’ on guitars!

Americans Agree More Than You Think

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

we agree If you listen to the network news, you probably think that most Americans favor abortion. You would be wrong. According to recent Gallup polling data, 70% of Americans think abortion should be always illegal or only allowed under certain circumstances, such as rape, incest, and life of the mother.

If you listen to the talking heads, you would think almost everybody opposes voter ID requirements to prevent election fraud. False. Rasmussen polls show 78 percent of voters are in favor of requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship.

You hear daily that you are out of the mainstream if you think illegal immigration is a big problem in this country. But that’s not true either – Rasmussen says 80% of voters consider it a very serious problem.

When it comes right down to it, Americans still share basic conservative values, despite the rapidly changing demographics. We pretty much all think it is wrong to harvest baby parts for profit. We support our policemen, firemen, and servicemen and women. We want to have a strong military, affordable health care, and safe roads and streets. We don’t like it when race-hustlers try to gin up conflicts among us. We want to raise our families and run our businesses without the government taking huge chunks of our paychecks and then trying to control every detail of our lives. We hate it when we find out the government is in bed with big business. We don’t want our country flooded with unvetted third-world foreigners who have no intention of becoming Americans. And we sure don’t think non-citizens are entitled to benefits at our expense.

These are not partisan issues. The vast majority of us agree.

So why won’t our elected officials do what we – the majority of Americans – elected them to do? And why won’t the media tell the truth about our shared American values?

Fortunately, it is not yet completely out of our control. We can make our elected officials represent us, and we can make them clean up the cesspool that our federal government has become. Elections have consequences, but so does good old-fashioned communication. If you want your congressman to know what your expectations are, you should be in frequent enough contact that he or she knows your name. If you are tired of manipulative media organizations, you can let them know your disapproval or turn them off. And if your neighbor, your father-in-law, your preacher or your teacher disagrees with the majority of us, you can persuade and invite them to join us in celebrating our shared American values.

For over a year I have been attending political and presidential campaign events. Whenever Speaker Boehner’s and Leader McConnell’s names are mentioned, there is a unanimous and resounding boo from the audience. The GOP candidates routinely advocate dumping the congressional leadership for a guaranteed ovation. Today’s news that Speaker Boehner will step down proves that Americans agree it is time for change, in such numbers that he had no choice.

Yes, these are dangerous times. Yes, there is corruption all around us. But please don’t believe that you are the one who is out of step. Americans agree much more than the idealogues want us to know. If we stand firm by our common values, our grandchildren still might have a nation worth living in.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Right, you’re bloody well right
You know you got a right to say
Right, you’re bloody well right
You know you got a right to say

Bloody Well Right – Supertramp

There’s no mistaking Supertramp’s Fender Rhodes signature electric piano sound. They are still rockin’, and here’s a great live take on one of their super hits.