Conservative Bloggers Are Having Fun – Seriously!

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard 4

image by JaneFriedman.com

A group of patriots from all over the USA will converge on Washington, DC this weekend. We believe in personal and property rights, smaller and more effective government, the power of the free market, and the sanctity of our unique and brilliant Constitution. We care about the future of the country and generations to come. We work every day to defend the values, virtues and policies that made America strong and to expose and oppose the actions of those who would do her harm, either through malevolence or ignorance.

We are the bloggers. And this is our weekend: RightOnline 2015, the annual conference for liberty-minded writers and online activists, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, Townhall.com, the Franklin Center, and others.

Some of us are paid professionals, working for organizations that are funded by concerned benefactors. Most of us are citizens who consider the condition and direction of our country at this point in history so grave that we volunteer our time and money to try to make a difference.

The mainstream media and political elites are only now beginning to understand the power of a citizen-driven information stream propelled by digital technology. It seems like ancient history, but it was only three years ago when firebrand Michelle Malkin verbally smacked down Juan Williams for his condescending remark, “I am a real reporter, I’m not a blogger, out there in the blogosphere . . .”

It was a pivotal moment for those of us who now feel empowered to punch and counter-punch against liberal media bias. We take our role seriously, and as our numbers and outreach continue to grow, we are having a profound impact on political and social discourse and national policy.

Melissa Clouthier, despite her relative youth, was one of the pioneers of conservative digital media. “We write because without us the media would be even more biased and unbalanced than it already is,” she says. “And we learn so that we are empowered.” Melissa still has a full plate of activism, not the least of which is over 47,000 Twitter followers.

When real estate professional Laura Rambeau Lee saw the government bailing out big banks, she knew a financial disaster was brewing, and she was right – and angry. Laura started reading and commenting on other writers’ blogsites, and soon was publishing her own posts on her site “Right Reason” and many others . “Now, here I am being read on six continents and have friends/bloggers all over the world. Apparently I have a lot to say!” Laura says she is proud to be one of Andrew Breitbart’s “Happy Warriors” and has a huge Facebook following.

As Happy Warriors, we bloggers mean business but we also allow ourselves to have a little fun.

“Pundit” Pete Boddie has an extensive staff of employee specialists, each coincidentally named Pete. There’s political analyst Prognosticator Pete, Middle East correspondent Palestinian Pete, diversity director Pigment-Challenged Pete, and director of social media #PoundSign Pete, to name a few. “I write to make people smile,” he says. “Or to make them act.” Pete was energized by the Tea Party movement and that led him to political blogging. “I didn’t know exactly why, I just knew my country was in trouble.” Pete has been known to throw monkey wrenches into White House press briefings.

My own story is similar, as my political activism grew out of the Tea Party movement. Then a state Americans for Prosperity director invited me to a RightOnline conference in Las Vegas. At that time I didn’t know what a blog was, but after that whirlwind weekend, I was hooked. Feeling the need to “gently educate” as many misguided or under-informed citizens as possible, I decided to blend my passion for rock music with political common sense, and the result was “Rockin’ On the Right Side.”

RightOnline 2015 is a time for learning the latest strategies and technologies , a time for meeting new and old friends, and a time for planning to make our activism more effective than ever. Not to mention a great time to celebrate being “Just A Blogger.”

This post can be seen in its entirety at WatchDog Arena.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

But you can come along with me
‘Cause we gotta a lot of things to do now
And we’ll have fun, fun, fun now that daddy took the t-bird away!

Fun, Fun, Fun – The Beach Boys

Earth Day in Montana – Day of the Wolves

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard 4

wolf

My wife stepped out of the front door of our central Montana mountain home, and something moving to her right caught her eye. She froze in her tracks.

It was a large Canadian gray wolf, ambling across our driveway, on its way to its next meal – probably one of the many whitetail deer that bedded down on our property every night. Or maybe one of the neighbor’s new calves.

“That is one scary animal,” she said. “I couldn’t believe how big he was.” We had been worried about letting our small and admittedly wimpy dachshund, Stretch, out of the house without watching him. With so many eagles and mountain lions in the area he could easily end up as somebody’s evening snack. Now we had wolves to worry about, too.

In 1995 the Clinton administration, under cover of the Endangered Species Act, set out to “reintroduce” wolves to the Yellowstone Basin of Montana. It was not a true reintroduction, because the wolves that were relocated to the Yellowstone were Mackenzie Valley wolves, also known as the Canadian gray wolf. These wolves had never populated the Yellowstone. The only wolves indigenous to the area were Northern Rocky Mountain wolves, a smaller and less aggressive species. Northerns were eradicated from this part of Montana back in the 1920s by cattle ranchers protecting their herds, but are thriving in other areas.

Neither species is endangered. Far from it, in fact. They exist in great abundance throughout the northern US and Canada. Wolves are prolific hunters and reproduce rapidly, causing many to question why this expensive and destructive program was ever even considered.

Government planners claim to have originally intended a population of 300 wolves in the Yellowstone area. Within a few years the population exploded by the thousands and their hunting ranges had expanded to include the entire Rocky Mountain front, with migration as far as the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Wasatch range in Utah. Southwestern Montana’s world-class elk herd was decimated, along with a significant portion of the moose population. Hunting in southern Montana died, taking many hunting-dependent towns and small businesses with it.

Meanwhile, environmentalists embraced and encouraged the pro-wolf agenda. After all, the wolves were not on their property, dining on their livestock and hamstringing defenseless newborn elk and moose calves in their back yards. Taxpayer-funded programs were implemented to compensate ranchers for the loss of livestock to wolves, but in most cases it was totally insufficient.

Wolves don’t kill for food only. Mass killings of animals, especially during birthing season, have been observed, as reported by LewistownLivestock.com:

“We raise both cattle and sheep. During the past year we have witnessed more “joy” killing by wolves – animals that were alive with their guts hanging out or torn up so badly in the hind quarters they had to be euthanized. We’ve lost two yearling steers weighing over 600 pounds. We’ve lost several ewes and over 25 lambs. These brutal attacks have brought lots of tears. I had to look at my ewes that had their guts torn out and lying on the ground still alive and tell them there was nothing I could do. We live only 100 yards off Highway 1. These attacks occurred within 1/4 mile of our house. We have elk on our property, and the wolves passed right through them to come down and kill our livestock; so NO, wolves don’t just prey on wild game.” – Leslie Boomer, Boomer Ranch, Drummond

In the absence of any justifiable reason for the reintroduction of wolves to the Yellowstone Basin, critics of the program suspect ulterior motives, ranging from gun control and the elimination of the hunting pastime and industry to the unambiguous Agenda 21 objective of returning the Mountain West to its aboriginal state, unscathed by human influence.

The Endangered Species Act is one of many government initiatives that started with pure motives, but was co-opted for unrelated purposes and resulted in horrific unintended consequences. Is it right to sacrifice thousands of elk, moose, and other wild game – not to mention privately owned livestock, the very livelihood of ranchers – in exchange for packs of predators that are not endangered in any way?

This article is available in its entirety at Watchdog Arena.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

In touch with the ground,
I’m on the hunt down I’m after you,
Smell like I sound, I’m lost in a crowd.
And I’m hungry like the wolf.
Straddle the line, in discord and rhyme
I’m on the hunt down I’m after you.
Mouth is alive with juices like wine,
And I’m hungry like the wolf!

Hungry Like the Wolf – Duran Duran

Federal Employees – Here’s How to Get More Paid Vacation Time, Free!

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

vacation A message for Federal Government Employees:

Are you stressed out from all of those meetings and conferences in fancy hotels? Is that 30-hour work week wearing you out? Five weeks of vacation couldn’t possibly be enough. Couldn’t you use a little extra time off from that exhausting desk job?

How would you like an extra two weeks of paid vacation, free? No tricks, no gimmicks, no downside! No kidding! Up to 14 days of extra paid vacation time!

It’s easy. All you have to do is screw up!

That’s right, section 5 of the civil service code says that if you screw up, your boss can’t fire you. In fact he or she can’t even recommend any kind of disciplinary action. Your “punishment”, if any, will be determined by some middle-management guys in your agency who don’t have any skin in the game. These “deciding authorities” have no interest in whether you follow the rules, break the law, embarrass your department, or threaten national security. No skin off their noses, right? They just need to be sure that their boss has plenty of CYA sauce, and that they don’t gum up the works.

If they give you any punishment at all, it will be paid leave. Sorry, usually that is limited to 14 days, because if they assess more free vacation time than that, the “Merit Systems Protection Board” has to get involved, and it could complicate things for the boss. But don’t worry, really there is no risk. Nobody EVER gets fired from the federal government in the Obama era.

Here’s how it works. Let’s say you are on assignment for the DEA in Columbia, and you need a little extra time off (with pay) for a spring break getaway. All you have to do is go hang out at the local brothel and have some fun with the working girls. Really! Don’t worry, your sex party is paid for by the drug cartel (you know, those guys you have been pretending to bust for shipping container loads of cocaine to the fine citizens of Philadelphia and Detroit). So go and enjoy your time off. Your boss doesn’t mind.

The taxpayers don’t mind either. Heck, they have been giving out paid leave for all kinds of federal employees who have learned that screwing up is the best way to get some extra paid vacation time. According to the Washington Post, tens of thousands of federal employees are home on paid leave right now as part of their “disciplinary action” for screwing up. Over a recent three year period the tab to the taxpayers was $775 million in salaries alone, not to mention the cost of replacing these bad boys and girls while they were on their extra paid vacations.

The taxpayers even pay government employees at retirement time for sick pay that they didn’t use because they didn’t get sick. What’s another couple of weeks of vacation for you? No big deal.

So if you want a couple of weeks of extra vacation, take my advice: do something terrible!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Vacation, all I ever wanted
Vacation, had to get away!

Vacation – the Go Go’s

We Must Demand Real Federal Budgets

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard 1

zero based budgeting Zero-Based Budgeting is a simple concept, practiced by every family and every company in the USA. We all determine how much money we will receive for a given period, and then decide how we are going to spend it. We give priority to necessities, and then, if funds are available, we may indulge in luxuries or less-important items.

In fact the practice is so simple, so obvious, so common-sense that we don’t even give it a thought. We just do it. Most Americans would be surprised to learn that our federal government, with the largest budget on planet Earth, does not. The government simply takes whatever amount each department or agency spent last year, and adds to it. It is a recipe for economic disaster, and our $18 trillion debt is exactly that.

Last month Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) introduced HR1591, the “Zero-Based Budgeting Ensures Responsible Oversight Act of 2015”. ZERO for short. It’s his third attempt to bring reason to our federal budget process.

The ZERO Act would require each department to justify all of its spending every year. Congressman Ross points out that in recent years taxpayers paid $615,000 to digitize Grateful Dead tickets, $442,000 to study male prostitutes in Vietnam, and $2.5 million for a Super Bowl ad. Neither you, nor I, nor any of our elected representatives authorized that spending. But it happened because there is no oversight, and under the current “continuing resolution” system, there can’t be.

If ZERO is enacted, departments would have to describe every activity for which funding is requested, provide the legal basis for the activity, and offer three alternative funding levels, two of which would be below the current year’s level. They would have to provide details on the benefits derived from each activity and any added benefit for increased funding. Plus, they must show measures of cost efficiency and effectiveness.

Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) told me he and the budget committee “will take up zero-based budgeting as part of budget reform later this summer.” So far only one congressman, David Jolly (R-FL) has co-sponsored HR1591.

At least three presidential candidates are advocates of Zero-Based Budgeting. Two of them, Rick Perry and Jeb Bush, are governors who understand budgeting. The third is Carly Fiorina, a dollar-savvy former CEO to whom ZBB is second nature. Fiorina told Breitbart News about something I personally experienced as a small business owner:

“I started my career in Washington, D.C. and sold to the federal government. As anyone who has done business with the federal government knows, in the last six weeks of every year, every government agency spends every dime,” she continued. They do that because they want to make sure the appropriations process is focused on the rate of increase for the following year – not what they actually need or whether they actually need to spend it.”

We taxpayers are dropping the ball. First of all, we don’t understand our own tax returns. And second, we don’t do a good job of holding our elected officials and the bureaucrats they are supposed to oversee accountable for spending our money.

It is admittedly hard work to budget every year, and to actually plan and prioritize spending. Families do it. Businesses do it. Is it too much to ask of our government officials and employees? Let’s encourage our congressmen to get behind real budget reform.

This article can be seen in its entirety at Watchdog Arena.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

What’s that honey?
Pick you up at eight? And don’t be late?
But baby, I ain’t got NOOOOOOOO money, honey!
Oh, all right honey, you know what I like!

Chantilly Lace – the Big Bopper

Here’s a fun video about a guy with a budget problem:

Rep. Mulvaney on DEA Official’s Inability to Fire Corrupt Agents: “This Is Nuts!”

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Have you had some nagging doubts lately about whether our system of government still works?

When you get home from your 50-hour work week, kick your shoes off your tired feet, and sit down to watch or read the news, do you get that hinky feeling something is terribly wrong — when even after spending everything we give them, and accumulating an $18 trillion debt, our government still can’t perform the basic functions it was designed for?

Do you wonder once in a while if the federal government has become so huge and out of control there is absolutely nothing anybody can do about it, regardless of who is elected?

I’m sorry to say, this won’t make you feel any better.

A while back the Inspector General’s office learned that a number of DEA agents on assignment in Columbia were enjoying the services of prostitutes paid for by drug cartels. The first agents who “‘fessed up” were suspended for two to ten days. Later investigations revealed the problem was much more pervasive than first thought, and had been going on for a much longer time.

Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) thinks like you and I do. In the real world, this kind of thing is simple. When an employee egregiously misbehaves, utterly fails, is engaged in corruption, or worse yet – endangers the important mission he was hired to perform, you fire him. Right?

In the real world, yes. But not in the federal government. When Mulvaney, a member of the House oversight committee, asked top DEA administrator Michele Leonhart whether she could fire these bad actors, or whether she has ever seen a DEA employee who deserves to be fired, her answers were nothing short of breathtaking. Watch:

You didn’t know our government was this screwed up? It’s just the tip of the iceberg. Congressman Mulvaney was right when he said, “This is nuts.”

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Mental wounds not healing
Who and what’s to blame
I’m going off the rails on a crazy train!
I’m going off the rails on a crazy train!

Crazy Train – Ozzy Osbourne

Gay Wedding Cakes – What Difference Does It Make?

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard 1

photo courtesy of The Blaze

I hate to admit it, but just this once I agree with Hillary Clinton when she says, “What difference does it make?”

I’m not talking about Benghazi, I hope she goes to jail for that one. But most of the hoo-hah in the press is about stuff that is totally inconsequential. What difference does it make?

Once again, the news media has sacrificed a week of our waking, thinking lives on stuff that has absolutely no significance to the vast majority of Americans. The big item this week: Indiana’s “religious freedom law”. What a nothing-burger.

Indiana’s law just says if you own a business, and you are sued for discrimination by a customer for refusing to participate in what you consider to be a sacreligious act, you may use your religious commitment and beliefs as a defense. Doesn’t mean you will win.

Ann Coulter said in her brilliantly sarcastic column, “Evidently, the sole function of the media these days is to subject the public to a steady stream of manufactured events . . . [such as claiming] a law protecting religious freedom will lead to separate water fountains for gays in Indiana.”

Manufactured is right, and anyone with a modest sense of proportion can see that the stuff they are manufacturing doesn’t amount to a rat’s derriere. Do the math. How many people are gay? Maybe 3%? How many of them get married? Maybe 5%? How many of them are likely to run into a bakery that will turn down a $200 profit by refusing to bake their wedding cake? Maybe 1%? I’m not a statistician, but according to my non-Common-Core math I think we are talking about .0015% of the adult American population. All this fuss over maybe a hundred people? And that’s a stretch.

With all the publicity you would think there is NOTHING IN THE WORLD more important than wedding cakes for a couple of cranky gay couples. Starving kids in Guatemala? Doesn’t matter. Radiation in Japan? Yesterday’s news. Violent civil unrest in Myanmar? Forget it, Rachel Maddow doesn’t know Myanmar from a Mars Bar.

We are being played for idiots. You and me. The media / liberal Democrats (same thing) are so condescending to us, the American people, that they think they can convince the masses that we all are losing sleep over the ten or twenty gay people who go out of their way to cause problems for a few families trying to earn a living and live by their religious principles. And they think this chicanery can swing elections. God help us if they are right.

I’m not worried about the working families. They will be fine if we all just let them do their thing. The couple of gay activists making trouble? Not even a mosquito on an elephant’s ass.

Can we talk about something important now?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Doesn’t matter what the pain we go through
Doesn’t matter if the money’s gone too
Just as long as I’m with you
Nobody but you, baby, baby

Doesn’t Matter – Janet Jackson

It’s the OTHER Jackson, and she’s hot. Check it out.

Liquid Natural Gas – Good For Ecology and Economy

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard 1

What American product could . . .

Create hundreds of thousands (some say millions) of USA jobs
Reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and preserve the quality of the environment
Provide domestic energy independence and help us support our allies
Improve our negative balance of trade, especially with China

The answer: Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

The USA holds the potential to be the world’s energy leader. The shale-oil boom that resulted from new fracking (hydraulic fracturing) technology has created a very happy unforeseen consequence: a seemingly endless supply of natural gas, perhaps the cleanest, safest and most efficient energy source available.

When cooled to a temperature of -260 degrees Fahrenheit, natural gas becomes liquefied, and its volume shrinks by 600 times. Traditionally, natural gas has been transported by pipelines. The new LNG technology makes the shipment of natural gas practical and affordable, even overseas to energy-starved regions. The efficacy of LNG for the production of electricity and automotive transportation applications is breathtaking.

It’s great news, and not only for the US economy. Many nations, including Japan and China (the world’s largest energy importer), are in dire need of affordable and reliable sources of energy. We have what they need. So what prevents the USA from moving ahead and taking advantage of this narrowing window of opportunity?

Sadly, it is politics. Not exactly partisan politics, but politics nonetheless.

Environmental activists like the Sierra Club oppose the extraction of virtually any fossil fuel, including natural gas. They claim that increased demand for natural gas would encourage fracking, a practice they abhor. They label anyone who defends the remarkable environmental accomplishments of the United States (in sharp contrast to China and other Asian nations) a “science denier.” Yet it is these same environmentalists who fight the development of clean-burning natural gas and its export to the world’s worst polluters.

The Obama administration has done a balancing act in recent years, at times offering support for increased exports of LNG, and at other times acquiescing to pressure from its liberal base.

A lingering question about the benefit of exporting liquefied natural gas is the contention by some, including big players Alcoa and Dow Chemical, that domestic natural gas prices would increase if exports increased. Numerous studies say it’s not true, and lately the Obama administration and the DOE seem to agree.

As I reported back in January of 2013, advocates of the export of LNG have been pressing the federal government to remove the roadblocks and get after it, before Russia and others beat us to the market. Both the Dept. of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have imposed delays on the approval of LNG exports, invoking restrictions attributed to “impacts on health and the environment” and “economic, security, and domestic supply considerations”. Cynics say well-funded lobbyists are in control.

In January the US House passed, on mostly partisan Republican support, a bill to speed up the approval process for LNG exports. A similar bill was passed last year. The likelihood of getting such legislation through the Senate and signed by the president seems slim.

If there is one issue that should have bipartisan support, it is the need for a new American energy policy. The benefits of energy development, especially LNG, to our economy, employment, the environment, and national security are unassailable, the Sierra Club notwithstanding. Pandering news reports and crocodile tears about climate change and science denial are nothing more than transparent demagoguery in the face of such an opportunity to really improve the economy and the environment simultaneously.

When “Earth Day” is celebrated later this month, I hope somebody brings up the subject of LNG – a game-changing technology whose time has come.

This post, and many more outstanding current and topical articles can be seen in its entirety at Watchdog Arena.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

CLASSICAL GAS

My vote for the world’s greatest guitar player is Tommy Emmanual of Australia. Watch this great video of him playing the timeless Mason Williams hit “Classical Gas”.

Here’s the video:

Liberals, Please Don’t Ruin Sports For Our Kids

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard 2

Conrads first baseball game 7 My grandson just turned five, and that entitles me to coach his little league baseball team. It’s Grandpa Heaven. Our first game was last Saturday.

At this age, the coach pitches to his own players and if they can’t hit it after five good pitches, they hit from a tee. My grandson smashed my first pitch into deep center field, but I digress . . .

I didn’t expect a baseball game for five-year-olds to have a political slant. But it sure did.

Our team took the field first, and the other team sent up their first batter. He hit a grounder to our first baseman, who stepped on the bag for the first out. But instead of returning to the dugout, the batter stood on first base, held there by his coach. My other coaches and I looked at each other, confused. Our players looked at us wondering what was going on. We told the opposing coach, “Hey! That kid is out!” (There are no umpires for T-ball.)

“No, we are going to let all the kids run the bases,” he said. “Nobody goes out.”

The second batter hit a grounder to our pitcher, who tossed the ball to first base. Out number two. But no, the coach left both runners on the bases. We didn’t put up a fight at the time, because it was our first year coaching in this league, and the other team’s coaches seemed to be veterans with authority. “This is the way we play in this league,” they barked. We had been given the leagues “rules” before the season started, stating, “There will be a maximum of 5 runs or 3 outs per inning, whichever comes first,” and “An out is an out. Player must leave the field of play.” Apparently rules mean as much to these dads as the Constitution does to President Obama.

This morning I wrote a note to the coach of our opposing team next week, asking him to agree that “an out is an out” in our upcoming game. I explained that the kids were confused because rules weren’t enforced, and many of them were getting really bored because every play had the same outcome. I copied my email to the league’s director.

That started a flurry of emails. Turns out the league director is a knuckle-headed liberal who thinks that it is more “fun” for the kids to never fail than it is for them to actually succeed. I pointed out that kids, especially at that age, need order and structure. They want to know what they are supposed to do. What’s the point of throwing the ball to first base if the runner is always safe? And why bother to run hard to beat the throw if you will be safe anyway? The “putout” is fundamental to baseball. There is no game without it. And besides, what is more fun than getting a legitimate base hit, or a putout?

The director, of course, launched into the predictable liberal tirade about the evils of competition. “Besides, kids at this age never put anybody out anyway,” he claimed. That got my daughter (assistant coach) into the fray. “Our team made five putouts in the first inning, three in the second, and two in the third!” she countered. She was a very competitive athlete in younger years, and was obviously keeping score, mentally. “The other team got several putouts too. So did the teams that played after us.” She, too, pointed out that the players were getting bored because every play had the same outcome.

The director said he would think about it. But I’m not optimistic that the integrity of our T-ball league will be saved from a liberal fate.

Why do liberals think they have the only correct understanding of fairness? How fair is it when you put a kid out at first base and he gets to stay there anyway? A “game”, by definition, is a competition with a winner and a loser. Results. Consequences. Reality. No consequences, no game.

Imagine the NCAA championship game coming up in a couple of weeks. Every player gets to take the same number of shots. Every shot is good for two points, whether it goes in the basket or not. But nobody keeps score anyway, because it might make somebody feel bad. Do you think anybody would pay to watch? Or want to play? Even a five-year-old knows that’s just plain stupid.

** UPDATE 3/28/15 – our little “protest” worked – with support from other parents and coaches, we got the league director to enforce the rule. Starting today, in our little kids baseball league, “an out is an out.” Victory!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Just to hit the ball, and touch ’em all
A moment in the sun
It’s a-gone and you can tell that one good-bye!

Center Field – John Fogerty

check out Fogerty’s “baseball bat” guitar!

Montana Employees ‘Most Engaged’ In the Nation

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

Gallup US Map Employee Engagement A Gallup poll was released this week with the headline: Montana Ranks Highest in Employee Engagement in 2013 and 2014.

That Montana appears in a national news headline is, in itself, newsworthy. The nation’s fourth-largest state geographically ranks only 44^th in population, having just broken the 1 million mark. With only seven people per square mile, this beautiful “fly over country” is generally pretty inconsequential to the national news media.

So when my beloved Big Sky State is granted a few inches of bold type, it gets my attention. And as a retired business owner and manager – and an unabashed free-market capitalist – any discussion related to getting, keeping, and motivating employees is compelling to me.

Gallup’s poll asks employers to what extent their people are engaged and enthused about their work and workplace. Are they passionate about their jobs? Do they feel a “profound connection” to their company?

In Montana, apparently they do. In New York, not so much. What accounts for the difference?

The Gallup article concludes that employees in smaller businesses are more engaged than those lost in a sea of cubicles or a huge factory full of machines. There are very few large businesses in Montana, so most employees work directly with the owners and managers of their companies. They see and feel the connection between their own performance and the success of the business. They rely more closely on each other and know that the success of the individual employee and the company are interwoven.

Another factor is geographic isolation. Cattle outnumber people almost three to one in the Big Sky State. My hometown, Lewistown, is the 16^th largest city in Montana, with a population of almost 6,000. Most Montanans live in or near very small communities, and the distance to most services that the rest of the country takes for granted is considerable. It creates an uncommon level of self-sufficiency. Montanans learn to weld so they can repair their own equipment. They plow their own snow or else they would be stranded. They voluntarily man the fire trucks and ambulances. Waiting for government services is often just not an option.

And that just might be the difference between Montana and New York.

A few months ago when two feet of snow was predicted in New York, the government told residents to stay home. And they did. Two feet of snow in Montana just makes for better elk hunting. Try telling Montana hunters to stay home after a fresh snow! And a little snow certainly doesn’t keep those engaged Montana employees from going to work.

History teaches that dependence on government throttles personal ambition and motivation. And excessive regulation and government control restricts economic growth and standards of living. Montanans are currently waging what they consider to be an existential battle against federal encroachment, defending their water rights, their natural resources, and their land from a variety of federal programs that threaten seizure, severe regulation, or endless environmental litigation. 30% of Montana land is already “owned” by the federal government.

Montanans are engaged in preserving the sovereignty of their state and the ownership rights of their own property. They are engaged in the safety, well-being and economic success of their families and communities. Rather than wait for the federal government to determine their needs and provide for them, Montanans would just as soon the feds butt out.

It’s not hard to see why Montanans are more engaged in their employment than most other Americans.

see this article in its entirety at Watchdog Arena

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Together we’ll stand, divided we’ll fall
Come on now, people let’s get on the ball

And work together.
Come on, come on let’s work together
Because together we will stand

Every boy, every girl and man

Let’s Work Together – Canned Heat

The Newseum Tilts to the Left

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Tom Balek Standard 2

newseum I was in Washington, DC yesterday and after I finished my business there I had a few hours of free time before my flight home. I had been wanting to visit the Newseum, and here was my chance.

At this point I should come clean. I must admit that I have an addiction. My name is Tom Balek, and I am a newsaholic.

There, I said it. Ever since high school journalism class I have had a fascination with news – the process of investigation and reporting, the incredible importance and power of freedom of the press, the technology, the ethics, the relentless pace, the pathos of a great story well written. I spent many hours working on my high school paper, and after college I taught journalism for a couple of years in small-town Montana.

Back then journalism students learned that impartial honesty and accuracy were sacrosanct to a reporter or editor. A journalist was duty-bound to report the facts and nothing else. Facts must be verified and double-verified. Opinion was not allowed outside the confines of the editorial section. That was that.

It was the “Edward R. Murrow” school of journalism. Murrow has been credited with creating radio and television news as we know it. Or, I should say, knew it. Modern news reporting came of age during World War II, and pioneers like Murrow set the bar high.

Then, as we all know, journalism changed. Some years ago I had an animated discussion with a top news producer for ABC about what I felt was a growing liberal bias in news reporting. He very candidly told me that as far as he knew, at least in his own news division, there was (at that time) no left vs. right bias. The mission of his department was to produce news stories that would increase ratings and thereby maximize ad revenue. Period.

That caused me to ponder whether the news is a reflection of real life, or real life is a product of the news. I concluded that the question is really not that deep: the news media merely pander to the latest whims of pop culture in search of ratings.

This was just before the first Obama election, and we all know what happened to the news media since then. Chris Mathews’ “thrill up my leg.” The defense of blatant lies by the State Department about the Benghazi embassy attack. The blind eye to the attorney general’s Fast and Furious scandal. The refusal to report the IRS targeting of opponents of the administration. While talk radio and Fox News built a thriving industry on the popularity of conservative opinion and news analysis, the liberal media bias in hard news reporting became almost universal. Ratings were no longer the primary objective. Networks like MSNBC and CNN persisted in their liberal propaganda campaigns despite plummeting viewership.

Nowhere is this liberal bias more evident than at the shrine of the news industry, the Newseum. It would be naive to expect anything else. Study after study has determined that modern journalists are predominantly liberals and any pretense of adherence to the Edward R. Murrow rules of journalistic propriety is routinely sacrificed to the mission, as defined by Peter Jennings: “Those of us who went into journalism in the ’50s or ’60s, it was sort of a liberal thing to do: Save the world.”

While the Newseum does point out some ‘errors in fact’ produced by the news media over the years (Dewey Defeats Truman), it has no criticism of MSNBC’s Al Sharpton, who remains immune from a history of outrageous lies, including his totally fabricated story of the rape of Tawana Brawley by a group of Boston police officers and an attorney. Only fleeting mention is made of the pioneers of conservative media, such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Andrew Breitbart, who had a profound effect on national politics and culture. And that fleeting mention is pointedly disparaging.

At least half the displays in the Newseum were dedicated to the civil rights movement, featuring compelling stories, photos, and video of Ku Klux Klan rallies and violent abuse of southern blacks. But there was not a single mention of the ties between the Democrat party and the Klan, or the Republican leadership against segregation.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.” Unfortunately, the average citizen today is not very discerning – only 36% of adults know the three branches of government – and the news industry does not hesitate to take advantage of our ignorance.

The Newseum aspires to be a “champion of the first amendment” and promotes the value of freedom of the press. It admits, in one display, that bias can exist in news reporting, and then points to Fox News as an example. If only it could see this failing within its own left-tilting walls.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I make my living off the Evening News
Just give me somethin’, somethin’ I can use
People love it when you lose, they love dirty laundry

Dirty Laundry – the Eagles

Even idiot rock stars can’t resist taking a shot at Fox News: